Surveillance And Long Term Disability Insurance Claims

Hi, I’m Nick Ortiz. I’m a board-certified disability insurance attorney. Today I’m here to talk to you about surveillance and long-term disability insurance claims.I’m oftentimes asked, “Do you really think the insurance company’s conducting surveillance on me?” And the answer is absolutely yes. That surveillance can be in one of many different ways. The most common that we’re mostly familiar with is video surveillance. So in the classic sense of hiring a private investigator to go out and try to capture you on camera, or video-record your activities, then yes, insurance companies do hire private investigators to conduct video surveillance.

But here’s a tip on the most likely time that they’re going to do so. They’re only going to want to hire someone to try to follow you when they know you’re going to be leaving your home. So if you’ve told the insurance company that you have a doctor’s appointment, for example, and you tell them the date and time of the doctor’s appointment, then the insurance company is most likely to hire someone for maybe a couple of days before that date, the day of your appointment, when you’re going to be leaving your home, and maybe a day or two afterwards, so they can get some before and after footage. But they don’t want to just waste their money and randomly send somebody out when they don’t know if you’re going to leave your house or not, so that’s why the most likely time is if you’ve told them you’re going to be at a certain time and place, that they are going to maybe do it at that point in time.

The other most-common type of surveillance that the insurance company will do is look at your online presence. They will be looking at your social media profile. They’ll be checking out, most importantly, your Facebook page. A lot of people don’t check their settings to know how private their settings are, and everything is out there for the world to see, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve reviewed a claim file where the insurance company has literally printed out the history of the claimant’s Facebook activity. So they know what activities you’ve been engaged in, what comments you’ve made, if you’ve posted that you’ve been to certain locations, if you’ve been on vacation, if you’ve engaged in activities like boat-riding and things like that, then they’re going to make reference to that as part of your claim file. So you should always be very aware of your social media presence, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any of the other major social media that’s out there.

If you have any additional questions about surveillance or the long-term disability process, especially if your claim has been denied, then I encourage you to give us a call at 850-898-9904 for a consultation.

If you’d like additional information that you can download, I’m making available a free copy of a book that I wrote, called The Top 10 Mistakes that Will Destroy Your Long-Term Disability Claim. You can download a free copy immediately at www.freeLTDbook.com.

Thanks for watching. We look forward to hearing from you.