Halloween is full of things that go bump in the night. But for the leaders managing employee driving programs, the scariest stories don’t involve ghosts or goblins — they involve wasted vehicle spend, inconsistent reimbursement, and risk that goes unnoticed until it’s too late.
We pulled together three real stories from companies that lived through their own version of a haunted reimbursement program. Each one started the same way every good ghost story does: something felt a little off, nobody could quite explain why, and by the time the full picture came into view, it had already been costing them for years.
Consider this your warning. Read on before you find out the hard way.
Ghost story #1: The program that kept multiplying in the dark
RelaDyne grows by acquisition — but every company it brought in came with its own reimbursement policy, its own company cars, and its own fuel cards. Nobody planned it this way. It just accumulated, deal after deal, until the company was running five or six different reimbursement models at once with, in the words of Fleet Management and Acquisition Manager Tyler Doyle, “no rhyme or reason.”
One associate got a flat $500 a month. Another got $500 plus a fuel card. Nobody could say why.
Once RelaDyne consolidated 320 associates onto a single Fixed and Variable Rate (FAVR) reimbursement program built on Motus Reimburse, the picture got a lot less spooky — and a lot less expensive than anyone had realized. The company identified more than $600,000 in annual reimbursement savings, including roughly $60,000 a year in evening and weekend mileage waste that had been hiding in plain sight.
The lesson: an employee driving program that grows without a consistent policy doesn’t stay quiet for long. It just keeps multiplying until someone finally turns the lights on.
Read the full RelaDyne story here →
Ghost story #2: The liability that was always in the room
For decades, Atlanta Beverage Company ran its sales and distribution teams on a company-owned fleet vehicles. It felt like the safe, familiar choice — the kind of thing nobody questions because it’s always been that way. But owning hundreds of passenger vehicles meant carrying full liability around the clock, whether those vehicles were on the road for business or not.
Rising insurance premiums. Unpredictable claims costs. High-dollar accident litigation becoming more common by the year. The risk had been sitting there the whole time; it just hadn’t been given a dollar figure yet.
By moving employees out of company cars and to a FAVR program with year round insurance and motor vehicle record (MVR) monitoring, Atlanta Beverage avoided an estimated $1 million in claims costs by eliminating liability exposure associated with company-owned passenger vehicle.
The lesson: liability doesn’t announce itself. It just waits on the balance sheet until a claim forces the conversation nobody wanted to have.
Read the full Atlanta Beverage Company story here →
Ghost story #3: The blind spot nobody saw coming
Kyocera’s field service technicians operated across multiple subsidiaries, each running its own version of mileage reimbursement and driver compliance. Insurance coverage, license status, motor vehicle records — all of it was tracked locally, checked mostly at onboarding, and then left alone.
Nobody could see the whole picture. As Senior Director of Business Transformation Ian deCone put it: “We didn’t have line of sight before.”
After standardizing onto a FAVR-based reimbursement program with year-round insurance and MVR monitoring, Kyocera gained something it had never had: ongoing visibility into driver eligibility and risk across the organization. Previously undetected or potential compliance risks could surface earlier, giving the company an opportunity to address them instead of relying primarily on point-in-time reviews.
The lesson: the scariest risks are the ones that stay out of sight. A once-a-year check isn’t monitoring — it’s a peek behind the curtain, right before it closes again.
Read the full Kyocera story here →
The real trick-or-treat
None of these companies set out to build a haunted employee driving program. Policies accumulated. Familiar approaches stayed in place. Point-in-time reviews left gaps between checks.
That’s what makes these stories scary: the problem wasn’t one bad decision. It was what happened when an employee driving program went too long without a closer look.
If any of these stories sound a little too familiar, it may be time to shine a flashlight into the darker corners of your own program.
Don’t let your reimbursement program come back to haunt you. Talk to a Motus expert →
