If you have a claim for an injury or disability, you should be aware of the numerous investigative strategies used by insurance companies to cast doubt on your claim’s veracity. Remember that the insurance company’s purpose isn’t to pay you what you’re owed, but to either prevent you from recovering at all or to pay you the least amount possible. The most prevalent is surveillance. Typically, insurance firms deploy surveillance after taking the claimant’s deposition. Insurance firms will ask comprehensive questions about what claimants can no longer accomplish during the deposition. Then they’ll employ a video surveillance investigator who’s familiar with disability or injury video surveillance to observe the claimant’s daily activities in an attempt to catch them doing things that contradict their deposition testimony. Surveillance isn’t always visible. The majority of the time, a person is unaware that he or she is being watched or recorded. This is done in a variety of methods by investigators. They usually travel in two automobiles. When the person turns, one would continue straight and the other would pick up. Investigators usually seldom trail a suspect or stick out among a crowd. Furthermore, save for a person’s home or place of business, investigators can conduct video surveillance just about everywhere in the general public, such as parks, gyms, restaurants, churches, and so on.
Insurance firms will also monitor what is put on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Craigslist, and other similar sites. Anything a person posts online, including images, videos, audio, and material, could be used against him or her. If a person claims to be unable to conduct everyday activities but yet posts Tweets every fifteen minutes, the act of posting itself could be used against them.
Insurance firms may employ unfair surveillance practices, such as utilizing collected photographs, posts, and recordings out of context, which can be powerful defense reasons for insurance companies. Injury and disability claimants should be aware of this.
Also, keep in mind that insurance companies may conduct additional surveillance if they were unable to get strong proof during previous attempts.
If you feel you are being followed or videotaped, call the cops to have the odd vehicle or person stopped. After all, you never know if the stalker is an employee of the insurance business or someone looking to rob or harm you. If you are pursuing an injury or disability claim, don’t think that simply because you have a valid claim that you won’t be targeted for surveillance. You should always be mindful of what you’re doing and how it can affect your claim if the insurance company captures and uses your actions, even if they’re taken out of context.
Do insurance companies stalk you?
Have you ever had the feeling that you were being watched? It’s possible that your instincts were correct.
Every year, insurance firms spend millions of dollars spying on their disabled claims.
They perform these detailed investigations in order to refuse claims or withdraw benefits that have already been granted.
Whatever they discover could be used against you.
An investigator will be hired by the insurance company to undertake a full background and surveillance check.
To put it another way, the investigator’s primary purpose is to follow you about.
Do insurance companies always check cameras?
Absolutely! It is the role of the insurance adjuster to gather evidence in order to deny or decrease claims. In order to do so with your claim, the adjuster will look into every option. The insurer may conduct the following types of surveillance:
If you agree to give a statement, the insurance company may capture it on video and use it against you later. The same may be said about face-to-face meetings. In order to trap you into stating something that contradicts your claim, an insurance adjuster may plan in-person encounters. As a result, you should never make a statement or agree to a meeting without consulting an attorney first.
In settlement discussions and at trial, photos can be used against you. For example, images from after the accident that you put in public venues, such as social media, as well as photos that you submit directly to the agency, are open game for insurance agents. If any of your photographs contradict your claim, the agency will use them to refute it or, at the very least, to discredit your testimony.
An insurer may also look for statements about your health on social media, even if they appear innocuous, such “Don’t worry everyone, I’m fine.” As a result, you should avoid publishing on social media until your case has been resolved.
How do insurance companies conduct surveillance?
Insurance companies hire private detectives and instruct them to learn everything they can about you. Investigators will track you down and photograph and videotape your every move. Their purpose is to gather any information that will aid them in denying your LTD claim or terminating your benefits.
How do insurance companies spy on you?
“Is the insurance company permitted to follow and watch me?” our clients have inquired in the past. Many personal injury claimants have legitimate concerns about this. They are not only dealing with terrible injuries, but they also have to worry about the insurance company watching and analyzing their every move.
Many vehicle accident damage claimants believe it is exceedingly unjust for the insurance company to keep an eye on them after the insured has injured them. The insurance company, on the other hand, is focused on paying as little as possible for your injuries. As a result, insurance firms have a reputation for spying on clients in order to gather material that could weaken the personal injury claim.
Can the Insurance Company Legally Spy on a Claimant?
Yes, an insurance company can engage a private investigator to follow you around while you are out in public. However, if the private investigator follows or spies on you in a place where you have a legitimate expectation of privacy, legal concerns may develop.
The distinction between public and private space might be difficult to draw. Spying on someone in their home, for example, is almost certainly a violation of their privacy. A private investigator, on the other hand, can keep an eye on you when you’re putting out the trash. Essentially, this means that a private investigator can observe you as long as you are in a public location, such as a sidewalk. It may be illegal for a private investigator to watch you in places where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as your home or attorney’s office.
Contact an experienced personal injury lawyer at Riddle & Brantley for a FREE consultation if you feel the insurance company hired a private investigator to follow you around after a car accident.
While it may be legal for insurance firms to snoop on you in public, there are some places where you should expect privacy. Our firm has dealt with insurance companies spying on clients on several occasions, and we would gladly assist you in navigating through this stressful situation.
“Will the insurance company ‘spy’ on me?
Clients sometimes inquire about the likelihood of the insurance provider spying on them after they file a claim.
Insurance companies, for the most part, will not spy on claimants who have suffered serious injuries and whose guilt is evident. However, as social media has grown in popularity, insurance firms have begun to monitor personal injury claimants online.
Claimants’ Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platform posts have been known to be combed through by insurance defense lawyers. The insurance company visits these locations to acquire evidence that the claimant is not as seriously injured as he or she claims. For these reasons, it’s critical that you don’t post anything about your injuries on social media, and that you limit who has access to your accounts.
Protecting Your Online Privacy and Legal Rights
Insurance companies and defense attorneys have recently used social media posts to try to discredit personal injury claims, according to Riddle and Brantley. If you’ve recently filed a personal injury claim, read the suggestions below to avoid insurance companies exploiting your social media post.
- After an accident, use extreme caution while sharing anything on social media. While your claim is active, we advise customers not to publish any photographs or videos on social media. We don’t want to provide the insurance company with any information that they can use against you.
- If you still want to use social media, make sure you utilize the most restrictive privacy settings possible. You can limit who has access to your social media pages, limiting the information and content that the insurance company or private investigator has access to.
- Carefully select your friends and followers. Accepting just any friend or follower request is a bad idea. Check to see if the person attempting to follow you is someone you know. Insurance firms may attempt to track you in order to acquire access to your accounts.
- Keep sharable material in mind. Limit the number of people who can tag you in a post. Another way the insurance companies can obtain evidence against you is by finding posts about you that others have shared.
- Take your lawyer’s advise. Even though social media is one of the most common ways we contact with one another, it’s vital to keep your social media usage to a minimum during a personal injury case. Posts made before or after an accident can have a significant impact on your claim. You can minimize how much the insurance companies can use against you by following your attorney’s recommendations.
Can insurance investigators tap your phone?
Trespassing on your private property, entering your home without your permission, hacking into your email or mobile phone, installing a tracking device on your automobile, or impersonating law enforcement officers are all things that private investigators are not authorized to do.
An insurance company WILL use your words against you
Assume that anything you say to an insurance company representative is being recorded and analyzed for use against you. When communicating with an insurance adjuster after an accident, it’s critical to remember to never:
While it’s critical to provide the truth about your side of the story, the best response to every query or offer they make should be, “Let me consult my attorney.”
An insurance company WILL hurl baseless accusations to scare you
When you start defending yourself against an insurance company, they may try to intimidate you. They could accuse you of exaggerating the costs of your medical bills and committing fraud. They may threaten to take away your driver’s license. They might even tell you that their deal is done.
Don’t believe what they’re saying. Insurance adjusters are not attorneys, fraud investigators, or judges, and they have no legal authority. They will not waste money to carry out these threats if you have stated your argument vigorously but truthfully.
They understand that good, honest individuals are scared of being wrongly accused of a crime, becoming embroiled in a legal struggle, or missing out on an important insurance claim. Using hollow threats to exploit these concerns is a common approach for them.
An insurance company WILL intentionally stall and take too long
There is no statutory need that an insurance firm provide prompt service. They know that by taking their sweet time until the statute of limitations expires, they may wear many individuals down and run out the clock. An insurance company may choose to push the problem down the road by:
If scaring you doesn’t work, an insurance company will try to annoy you until you give in and accept whatever they offer. They understand that no one wants to be dealing with the aftermath of a car accident months later. You have accident-related bills to pay, and the longer they go unpaid, the worse your situation becomes. Allowing an insurance provider to push you into desperation is a bad idea.
An insurance company WILL push paperwork at you until you sign
The ‘fishing trip’ is an insurance company’s most effective technique. They will continue to send you documentation with the words “Sign here and get your cheque” on it. DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING until you’ve discussed it with a competent personal injury lawyer and determined that their offer meets your financial requirements.
As time goes on, their mailings may grow more pushy, emphasizing that this is their FINAL OFFER and that if you don’t sign, you will lose any chance of receiving compensation for your losses. They are not to be trusted. You CAN win the money you deserve if you keep your cool, have the facts on your side, and have a personal injury lawyer on your side.
Can insurance companies obtain CCTV?
If your business employs CCTV to protect itself, you must post a sign warning customers that they are being recorded. Only those who need to see the material for business purposes should be able to do so. You must not allow the CCTV footage to be utilized in ways that were not intended, such as distributing photos or the film to the media or publishing footage online. Your intention to record CCTV footage on your business premises must also be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Is CCTV protected by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)? Yes. If you get a request for CCTV footage from a person who was involved in an accident, you must provide it to them within 40 working days. If other persons appear in the footage, you must get their written permission before using it or blur their faces to preserve their privacy.
Can insurance companies get video footage?
Insurance firms are doing everything possible to capitalize on the recent surge in video surveillance. They will go to any length to obtain video evidence that can assist them in proving or disproving culpability in a case.
How long do traffic cameras keep footage?
- 999 should be dialed in an emergency. This service should be used to contact police in instances where you need an immediate response, such as if a crime is occurring right now or if someone is in immediate danger.
- Call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 if you have any information on a crime and want to report it anonymously.
How long we keep recordings
According to Home Office recommendations, recordings are maintained for 31 days before being automatically erased. If evidence is needed, it is transferred onto a hard drive or DVD and handed over to the investigating official (typically the police) or given to your insurance company or solicitors.
How to obtain footage from a road traffic collision or accident
If you suspect a road traffic incident or accident was captured on CCTV within the last 31 days, you should contact your insurance company or attorney and ask them to file a request to the police.
If the tape is requested in connection with a criminal matter, it will not be disclosed until the police have completed their investigations. When seeking footage, please ask your insurance company or solicitor to be very explicit and include the following:
- specific position and travel direction (for example, outside 173 Kingston Road, Portsmouth Road junction Surbiton Road traveling towards Seething Wells / Scilly Isles)
- Vehicles involved, their make, model, and color (for example, AB01 CDE- Silver Vauxhall Astra)
Home
Members of the public are permitted to use CCTV on their premises without first registering and according to the ICO CCTV Code of Practice, as long as they do not monitor other people’s private spaces or the public roadway. You should be cautious about placing cameras in a way that exposes you to potential claims or litigation.
Business
Businesses may install CCTV, but they must register with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and follow the ICO Code of Practice. They must also make the aim of the system very apparent. See the Home Office CCTV Small Business Guide for additional information.
What is insurance surveillance?
Insurance surveillance, in general, is the hiring of detectives by insurance companies to obtain information in order to: Discredit insurance claims. Persuade claimants to withdraw their claim. Reduce the amount of compensation payable. Find out who is making false allegations.