Insurance companies retain private investigators to conduct surveillance investigations when they suspect a claimant might have filed a fraudulent claim. This is considered worker’s compensation fraud.
Worldwide Intelligence Network was assigned a case to surveil a claimant who alleged a severe injury to his foot that made him incapable of work. Having had an accepted claim, he had been off from work for over a year. When we started the investigation for the insurance examiner, he was still off from work.
The insurance examiner suspected fraud due to a report issued by an independent medical doctor. The report stated that nothing wrong could be found with the claimant’s foot.
It appeared that this claimant was cautioned by his attorney that he might be placed under surveillance and to be careful when he was out in public. While we surveiled the claimant exiting his home, he was videotaped limping—but on the wrong foot! And then, just before he walked into his chiropractor’s clinic, video was taken of him putting on a foot brace and taking out a pair of crutches from the trunk of his car. When he exited the clinic, he took off the brace, put his crutches in the trunk of his car, then drove over to a soccer field where he participated in a soccer game. Fortunately, all of this was videotaped, including the entire soccer game!
However, the claimant’s attorney asserted that his client took pain killers that day in order to participate in the soccer game. So, we simply continued our surveillance. Once again, the claimant was caught running, this time from a grocery store during a snow storm while pushing a shopping cart.
The claimant ceased receiving payments from the insurance company when a copy of the videotape was shown to his attorney. The attorney resigned from representing the claimant.