If You’ve Filed for Workers’ Comp, the Insurance Company Is Watching You
After filing a workers’ compensation claim, you may get the feeling that someone is watching you.
You’re not just imagining things.
The insurance company is watching you and waiting for you to mess up.
Workers’ compensation insurance companies do not want to spend more money than they believe they should, which means they will go to great lengths to save money.
Including hiring a private investigator to watch (aka spy) you in your daily life.
It’s creepy, but it’s happening.
In the article “I was a private investigator, spying for insurance companies. Here’s what I found” for ABC News, the investigator shares: “There are thousands of private investigators surveilling insurance claimants right now. The exact number of licensed investigators is unknown – most states don’t maintain registers – but insurance work is their bread and butter. It kept me employed full-time for a year – no cheating spouses, no thieves in the night, just people with a claim that was costing their insurance company money.”
Did you catch that?
It’s not just spouses hiring private investigators to collect evidence for divorce court – it’s investigators for insurance companies.
That workers’ compensation claim you just filed is costing them money, so the insurance company is watching you and hoping they can catch you doing something that would allow them to stop paying.
Insurance Companies Are Always Skeptical
You may have what you believe is an easy-to-understand work injury, such as a back injury from repetitive lifting in a warehouse or a fall.
As such, you don’t understand why the insurance company is watching you.
It’s not as if you are purposely trying to defraud someone. You didn’t spill product on the floor and pretend to slip and fall.
Unfortunately, because some people have attempted insurance fraud, insurance companies are skeptical of everything.
As a result, they hire a private investigator to watch anyone who they think could possibly be lying about their work injuries.
Spoiler alert – Everyone is a suspect.
Remember, their goal is to prove a workers’ compensation claimant is lying, so they don’t have to pay the claim.
If their private investigator can catch the injured worker behaving in a way that suggests they are lying, the insurance company will argue to reduce the benefits or stop them completely.
Signs You Are Under Surveillance
The first sign the insurance company is watching you is that you filed a workers’ compensation claim.
Go ahead and assume that, if you filed a workers’ compensation claim, you will be spied on at some point.
If you happen to notice an out-of-place vehicle near your home, this is another sign.
Some private investigators don’t do a good job of being private. You may very obviously have someone watching you.
Yes, It Is Legal
Now, you may be wondering if it is legal for insurance companies to watch you this way.
You bet it is.
Private investigators are allowed to take pictures and videos of public activity. This means they can park outside your home and take pictures or videos of you living your life.
It also means they can take pictures or videos of you “out in the wild,” such as going to church, eating in a restaurant, or grocery shopping.
They are not allowed to take photos of you inside your home using spy equipment.
But if you are brazen enough to disregard the doctor’s orders and lift something directly in front of the window, they can snap a picture of you from outside of your home.
How Insurance Investigators Spy on You
It’s important to remember that insurance companies are paying investigators to gather evidence that “proves” you don’t need workers’ compensation benefits.
This is their job – it isn’t a fun hobby.
That means they will use special tools the rest of us typically don’t have, such as long-distance lenses for cameras.
They will follow you when you leave home and see where you go (hopefully, not the gym!).
They will speak to your neighbors and ask them questions about you in hopes of discovering incriminating evidence.
They will perform desktop surveillance to see if you are posting photos that suggest you aren’t as injured as you claim.
Even if your profile is private, it’s a risk to post anything online. Private investigators have ways to get around privacy settings.
If you post an older photo, they can use it as misleading evidence that you are well and healthy today.
And remember, screenshots can come back to haunt you.
Desktop surveillance is becoming one of the main ways insurance companies are watching you.
Surveillance Can’t Show True Pain Levels
On top of being just plain creepy, insurance companies watching you is problematic.
We often say, “A picture speaks a thousand words,” but that isn’t always true.
How many of us have been in pain, but still smiled so we didn’t scare our kids?
If the private investigator takes a picture of you lifting your child, it may look as if you are able to lift heavy objects.
But the picture won’t show how much pain you were experiencing at the moment.
Sometimes pictures are misleading.
Let’s say you help your spouse get the groceries from the trunk. Your doctor placed you under heavy-lifting restrictions, but the private investigator gets a picture of you carrying a grocery tote inside.
What the private investigator may not know, and the picture will not show, is that this tote bag was filled with lightweight chips.
Watch How to Deal with Private Investigators
Live Your Truth and Hire an Attorney
So, yes, the insurance company is watching you. And no, they don’t want to pay workers’ compensation.
This doesn’t mean you should live in fear.
You should live your truth. You aren’t out to defraud anyone.
If you are hurting, let it show.
If your doctor puts you under orders or restrictions, follow them.
Be honest from the get-go. Tell the doctors the truth about your pain level and how the injury occurred.
Don’t give them any reason to think you could be lying.
And if you think they are going to try to use misleading evidence against you to halt your workers’ compensation benefits, contact an experienced workers’ compensation attorney.
[Related Read: 12 Ways a Workers’ Comp Lawyer Will Alleviate the Stress]
Workers’ compensation attorneys are very familiar with insurance companies spying on claimants.
They know all about the ways private investigators will try to get the perfect shot of you doing something innocent and twist it to look like you are doing something wrong.
They’ve been there and seen that. They fight false, misleading evidence every day. They’ll have your back and tell the whole, truthful story.
If you’ve been injured on the job, contact us today for a free, no-strings-attached consultation.
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