Answer:
You’re probably not as paranoid as you think. These days, it is not uncommon for insurance companies to hire private investigators to follow workers who have filed for workers’ compensation benefits. Although this is sometimes warranted to uncover fraudulent claims, more often than not, it’s a routine tactic used by insurance companies to avoid paying out even on legitimate claims.
There’s no law that prohibits an insurance company from hiring a private investigator to monitor your activities. In general, it’s not illegal for a private investigator to observe and photograph you in public places. But, this doesn’t mean that private investigators can go to any lengths to get incriminating evidence against you. For example, the law prevents investigators from trespassing onto your private property, entering your home, wiretapping your phones, or impersonating law enforcement officers.
Despite these limitations, private investigators can gather valuable ammunition against you just by following you around in public while you run errands, attend doctors’ appointments, perform yard work, or walk around inside your home with the blinds open. Fortunately, there are ways for you to prevent this from jeopardizing your workers’ compensation case.
Now that you’re aware that you’re being followed, you should take extra care not to put yourself in situations that can look bad when taken out of context. For example, don’t allow yourself to be photographed or videotaped lifting heavy boxes, gardening, or horsing around with your kids, if those activities are not consistent with your injuries. Sure, you might think you can handle these activities and you may stop them immediately once they start to cause you pain. But, all the photographs are going to capture is that you’re physically able to perform these tasks.
You should also be careful about what you post on social media, especially photographs. Before you post a picture, ask yourself: is there any way that this can be taken out of context in my workers’ comp case? For example, if your doctor has taken you off work because of your injuries, don’t post photographs of yourself hiking, even if you drove all the way up to the top and just stopped to snap a photograph.
Finally, don't forget that private investigators are trained to get quality photographs from over a hundred feet away. So, just because you don’t see photographers nearby doesn’t mean that they’re not there.
Even if your claim is minor and the insurance company hasn’t disputed any portion of your claim, make sure that your public activities are consistent with your claims.
