Insurers using Facebook to investigate claimants

[HVAC Instructor]

Insurers using Facebook to investigate claimants - Yahoo! News UK

Canadian insurance firm Manulife has reportedly cut a depressed womans benefits because photos showing her happy were posted on Facebook.

The woman, Nathalie Blanchard, said she cannot understand how Manulife was able to access her account because she had adjusted her privacy settings so that only friends could see her posts, said CBC News.

Blanchard was on leave from her company IBM for over a year after she was diagnosed with depression. She claims she was having fun on her doctors advice in order to forget her problems.

Manulife has confirmed to CBC News that it uses Facebook to investigate clients.

But it said, "We would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook."

Facebook has already proved its use to human resource departments wanting to investigate potential new staff. Senior managers have also been found to use Facebook to check up on employees.

According to Facebook's current privacy policy, the social networking site will share information to prevent fraud or other illegal activity.

"This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities," says the policy.

[evh5150]

for countless and endless reasons such as this is the reason my: facebook, myspace, and any other internet social networking portals have never been established using my birth name, but rather a pseudonym.

the friends i have on there know my true identity anyways, anyone else doesnt need to know unless i choose to let them know.

theres a better chance at finding the garden of eden or the holy grail than finding me online.

[mugofbeer]

You know, insurance fraud is insurance fraud. I

If a woman is on disability for depression and has pasted all over her Facebook page how "happy" she is and is "having fun" then that seems to be pretty good detective work on the Insurance company's part. If she really had privacy settings set then Facebook ought to find out how Manulife got thru those settings. Without seeing the page and exactly what the woman had written, its hard to make a judgement, but to me the picture at-hand is no different than the case that came out the last day or 2 about the guy who was living off of disability insurance.
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Designer Ronald Hunt Spotted on HGTV; Charged with Insurance Fraud

Now here's a guy who just may be a prime candidate for a Darwin Award. Interior designer Ronald Hunt, who had collected over $147,000 in disability insurance, was spotted working on an HGTV home improvement show. His performance was caught by an employee of the insurance company, who promptly called the California Department of Insurance. Hunt had claimed he was unable to work.

He has now been ordered to pay $180,000 in fines and restitution, as well as serve 60 months of probation and perform 200 hours of community service.

[HVAC Instructor]

You know, insurance fraud is insurance fraud. I

If a woman is on disability for depression and has pasted all over her Facebook page how "happy" she is and is "having fun" then that seems to be pretty good detective work on the Insurance company's part. If she really had privacy settings set then Facebook ought to find out how Manulife got thru those settings. Without seeing the page and exactly what the woman had written, its hard to make a judgement, but to me the picture at-hand is no different than the case that came out the last day or 2 about the guy who was living off of disability insurance.
--------
Designer Ronald Hunt Spotted on HGTV; Charged with Insurance Fraud

Now here's a guy who just may be a prime candidate for a Darwin Award. Interior designer Ronald Hunt, who had collected over $147,000 in disability insurance, was spotted working on an HGTV home improvement show. His performance was caught by an employee of the insurance company, who promptly called the California Department of Insurance. Hunt had claimed he was unable to work.

He has now been ordered to pay $180,000 in fines and restitution, as well as serve 60 months of probation and perform 200 hours of community service.

Surely you are not implying one photograph is evidence of faked depression?

The actual message of the thread was to point out it's not too smart to post your life on the internet for any reason. It also point out the ruthlessness of insurance companies.

[Luke]

Insurers using Facebook to investigate claimants - Yahoo! News UK

One more reason we should force insurance on everyone.

[mugofbeer]

Surely you are not implying one photograph is evidence of faked depression?

The actual message of the thread was to point out it's not too smart to post your life on the internet for any reason. It also point out the ruthlessness of insurance companies.

As I said, its hard to make judgement without seeing the page, but what I know since I have a Facebook page as well as LinkdIn, is they can contain huge amounts of information. If she made multiple statements about being happy and having fun and not being "depressed" then perhaps she shouldn't be collecting on disability insurance. Disability payments are for when one is so depressed that he/she cannot work.

According to what was written above, it was far more than just seeing a photograph. It was the things she wrote on the page. Since you didn't see her page either, I'd withhold judgement on the "ruthless" insurance company before you jump to conclusions either. Its got a lot of symptoms of insurance fraud - its just a new way of the insurance provider getting insight into the real condition of someone collecting benefits when, perhaps, they shouldn't be.

[PennyQuilts]

In custody/visitation cases, they drag in facebook and myspace things all the time. Even if the person tries to hide their identity or have high security settings, it is not difficult if they run with the same group to find someone who is less circumspect. Mama may not plaster pictures of her drunk with the kid pumping the keg, but her best girlfriends might, and when Mama comments, even under an alias, there are additional ways to track them down. Not only that, but once you have the alias, you can check out their friends and postings to see what sort of birds they're flocking with. We routinely kept up with our troubled kids on probation by monitoring their social networking sites. Don't think the detectives aren't doing it, either. On top of that, plenty of things get put on there that no one worries about at the time. Once they get into litigation, they'll try to erase things but ex significant others frequently have already saved copies.

[Midtowner]

In custody/visitation cases, they drag in facebook and myspace things all the time. Even if the person tries to hide their identity or have high security settings, it is not difficult if they run with the same group to find someone who is less circumspect. Mama may not plaster pictures of her drunk with the kid pumping the keg, but her best girlfriends might, and when Mama comments, even under an alias, there are additional ways to track them down. Not only that, but once you have the alias, you can check out their friends and postings to see what sort of birds they're flocking with. We routinely kept up with our troubled kids on probation by monitoring their social networking sites. Don't think the detectives aren't doing it, either. On top of that, plenty of things get put on there that no one worries about at the time. Once they get into litigation, they'll try to erase things but ex significant others frequently have already saved copies.

So true. And to add to that, neither the judges understand how these sites work, nor do the lawyers who might defend you, so your wall postings, i.e., posts made by someone else, can come back to bite you as well.

We recently had a case where the 'less than circumspect' individual was the child of the marriage who wanted to live with the other parent, so he printed out a bunch of pictures of mom drinking and partying and gave 'em to dad. Long story short, dad has custody now.

As for my own investigative methods, pipl.com will find just about anyone's social networking info, address, phone numbers, blog posts, forum accounts, etc. It's a darn scary site sometimes.

Just about the only way to protect yourself there is to, like me, have a very common name (the search isn't so useful when it returns thousands of hits to sift through).

[PennyQuilts]

Mid's right - a lot of things come in that shouldn't. Moreover, they can be used to bluff the other party. And if there is a guardian ad litem in the mix, he/she can make a recommendation, possibly influenced by the social networking information, without ever trying to actually enter disputed evidence. A lot of the partying and silliness is done by younger parents in their twenties who don't have a lot of money to hire a lawyer to protect them in court so it is more likely that questionable stuff will get in.

[Midtowner]

Mid's right - a lot of things come in that shouldn't. Moreover, they can be used to bluff the other party. And if there is a guardian ad litem in the mix, he/she can make a recommendation, possibly influenced by the social networking information, without ever trying to actually enter disputed evidence. A lot of the partying and silliness is done by younger parents in their twenties who don't have a lot of money to hire a lawyer to protect them in court so it is more likely that questionable stuff will get in.

It's kind of interesting to consider whether a wall post by a third party is inadmissible hearsay or an exception to the rule as a party admission and whether GALs as arms of the court are like the court and shouldn't/can't rely on hearsay or like experts who may rely on hearsay 'til the cows come home.... but I digress.

Point is -- the internet is unlike any media we've experienced in our lives and it's unlike anything else we'll probably experience. In the past, these sorts of public statements were limited to journalists and pamphleteers who were mostly trained to understand that public statements could have legal and financial ramifications.

The general public? They would be extremely lucky to have heard about the concepts of libel and slander in a journalism class they may have taken in high school or college, but to expect Joe Blow to actually know that there's a way for someone to sue him if he says something inaccurate about that person on the internet or that anything he says or does on his social networking site might lose him custody of his kids might be expecting a bit much [read: common sense is not common].

With the internet, there really is a big issue with the public not really understanding what their rights and responsibilities are with respect to what they say on the internet. These sorts of news stories, while displaying a bit of faux-naivité on the part of the reporter, really help to drive home these facts and to teach the public using real life examples of how the things you say can get you into financial or legal trouble.

[gmwise]

I agree with if not all most of what Mugs said.
And it is kinda scary what people can find out about people.
I wouldnt be surprised if "googling or pipling oneself or friends" becomes both a parlor game or a occupation for hired.

[PennyQuilts]

It's kind of interesting to consider whether a wall post by a third party is inadmissible hearsay or an exception to the rule as a party admission and whether GALs as arms of the court are like the court and shouldn't/can't rely on hearsay or like experts who may rely on hearsay 'til the cows come home....

I don't think there is any practical way a GAL could avoid hearsay in investigating the matter in order to have enough information to make a recommendation. We hear tons of hearsay all the time and even if we wanted to avoid it, it would be impossible. I don't think someone could rely soley on isolated hearsay evidence in making a recommendation and we are used to filtering out outlyers that aren't supported by hard facts or don't fit in the larger scheme of things. But where there is enough smoke, we tend to lean in the direction away from the fire in calling a tie. So I guess in that instance, we would be relying on hearsay. And we also make judgement calls and character evaluations all the time. The court knows it is our opinion and that is why we are appointed. It would be like a doctor not considering troubling symptoms provided by the wife in diagnosing the husband who swears she is making it up.

[Midtowner]

I don't think there is any practical way a GAL could avoid hearsay in investigating the matter in order to have enough information to make a recommendation. We hear tons of hearsay all the time and even if we wanted to avoid it, it would be impossible. I don't think someone could rely soley on isolated hearsay evidence in making a recommendation and we are used to filtering out outlyers that aren't supported by hard facts or don't fit in the larger scheme of things. But where there is enough smoke, we tend to lean in the direction away from the fire in calling a tie. So I guess in that instance, we would be relying on hearsay. And we also make judgement calls and character evaluations all the time. The court knows it is our opinion and that is why we are appointed. It would be like a doctor not considering troubling symptoms provided by the wife in diagnosing the husband who swears she is making it up.

It's interesting though -- you're an arm of the court. The court can't hear hearsay or consider it, but you can? Just like the judge who hears something to decide whether it's relevant or not, GALs have the capability of ignoring inadmissible evidence in reaching their conclusions. They are not qualified experts and are not expert witnesses -- the only folks who are allowed to rely on hearsay in reaching their conclusions per the FRE and Oklahoma Rules of Evidence.

I'm well aware that you can... I just don't know that you should. It seems to be an end-run around rules of evidence which are there for a good reason.

[PennyQuilts]

It's interesting though -- you're an arm of the court. The court can't hear hearsay or consider it, but you can? Just like the judge who hears something to decide whether it's relevant or not, GALs have the capability of ignoring inadmissible evidence in reaching their conclusions. They are not qualified experts and are not expert witnesses -- the only folks who are allowed to rely on hearsay in reaching their conclusions per the FRE and Oklahoma Rules of Evidence.

I'm well aware that you can... I just don't know that you should. It seems to be an end-run around rules of evidence which are there for a good reason.

One of those best interests of the child things. Just as a regular attorney advocates for their client having seen admissible and inadmissible evidence, the GAl advocates for the child and let's the judge make the call.

[Midtowner]

One of those best interests of the child things. Just as a regular attorney advocates for their client having seen admissible and inadmissible evidence, the GAl advocates for the child and let's the judge make the call.

Total hijack mode now...

But are you suggesting that there's an attorney/client relationship between the GAL and the child(ren)? That is definitely not what I think the intent of the Oklahoma statute is, and if it is, it creates some serious issues for the GAL, namely, professional liability issues. Also, according to Oklahoma case law, the GAL is subject to be cross examined by the petitioner and respondent, and the kids don't even have standing in the case concerning them to raise any issue whatsoever, so I don't really get how a GAL could be an "advocate" for her client if she's following the statute and interpretive case law (in Oklahoma).

[PennyQuilts]

Total hijack mode now...

But are you suggesting that there's an attorney/client relationship between the GAL and the child(ren)? That is definitely not what I think the intent of the Oklahoma statute is, and if it is, it creates some serious issues for the GAL, namely, professional liability issues. Also, according to Oklahoma case law, the GAL is subject to be cross examined by the petitioner and respondent, and the kids don't even have standing in the case concerning them to raise any issue whatsoever, so I don't really get how a GAL could be an "advocate" for her client if she's following the statute and interpretive case law (in Oklahoma).

All states are different. In Virginia, there is an attorney client relationship by law. We have a much stronger program than the one in Oklahoma and I have never known anyone to have any problems with professional liability matters. One of the reasons I don't think I will do GAL work in Oklahoma is because, as you point out, the attorney side of the relationship isn't super strong. Where I practice, we aren't subpoenaed and we can no more be required to testify than any other attorney. In fact, due to the relationship, it would be improper. As you say, it isn't the same in Oklahoma.

[Midtowner]

It would seem that you'd have a quasi-judicial immunity in Oklahoma as long as you didn't hold out an attorney/client relationship... loose that immunity and it could be a scary area to practice. I'm sure that since you're dealing with a class of people who probably don't have the resources or wherewithal to sue, doing paid GAL work could be very different. Particularly if you're working with an overcrowded docket and don't have the time/resources to do proper investigations.

One of these days, I guess I'll have to take a look at the VA statute.

[PennyQuilts]

It would seem that you'd have a quasi-judicial immunity in Oklahoma as long as you didn't hold out an attorney/client relationship... loose that immunity and it could be a scary area to practice. I'm sure that since you're dealing with a class of people who probably don't have the resources or wherewithal to sue, doing paid GAL work could be very different. Particularly if you're working with an overcrowded docket and don't have the time/resources to do proper investigations.

One of these days, I guess I'll have to take a look at the VA statute.

We've got some immunity built in. And by being an attorney, we aren't responsible for the results since the judge is the decision maker and we are completely independent.

[Midtowner]

Some sort of statutory immunity then? Because I would think any kind of attorney-client relationship with the child would pretty much nullify that otherwise.

[PennyQuilts]

Some sort of statutory immunity then? Because I would think any kind of attorney-client relationship with the child would pretty much nullify that otherwise.

http://www.law.yale.edu/RCW/rcw/juri..._standards.pdf

You might be interested in the standards. I am so used to being considered a full attorney on the part of the child that it would weird me out to practice where GALs aren't considered attorneys on equal footing with their fellow members of the bar in a given case.

[Chance23]

Her doctor told her to try to go out and have fun, which she did. To make the claim that she is no longer depressed because she posted a photo or two of her smiling is ridiculous. Depression isn't exactly over because the person went out and tried to have a good time somewhere.

[PennyQuilts]

Her doctor told her to try to go out and have fun, which she did. To make the claim that she is no longer depressed because she posted a photo or two of her smiling is ridiculous. Depression isn't exactly over because the person went out and tried to have a good time somewhere.

As an attorney, I wouldn't want the case. And that her doctor told her to go out and have fun sounds like she heard what she wanted to hear. And having fun is a sliding scale - if you are that seriously depressed that you can't work, completing a jigsaw puzzle might be all you can handle. Depression can be a very serious ailment but it is common. "The common cold of mental illness." The vast majority of people can function and the ones that can't, need to be treated. Suicide sometimes is a side effect. I'm not making light of it, at all. I think by her actions, she was.

You miss work because you are unable to function at the job. If she can function enough to attempt that sort of "cure," she is not so depressed that she can't go to work. She used that as an excuse to be off the job and have fun. She needs to grow up.

Having done employment law, what she did is so common is is ridiculous, perhaps not to that degree. It generally is a scam and yes, she probably can get her doctor to write her a note because that is what doctors do. Used to drive us crazy. But I'm betting she loses if she goes to court based on what was reported. She claimed she was too disabled to be able to work. You don't get to pick and choose. A lot of us get "depressed" at the notion of working but depression is a chemical imbalance that doesn't trot itself out for tedious things but let you go out and have fun. Perhaps if she is in therapy and/or taking medication she would have a stronger case. But I'm betting she is just an operator. She might have had depression but she is clearly functioning when she wants to.