Will the insurance company spy on me during my recovery?

Unfortunately, insurance companies regularly use investigators to spy on accident and injury victims. They fund this expensive effort with the profits they have made denying claims and under evaluating injury claims. This is called “sub rosa” investigation.

Investigators will park down the street from your home in a van, equipped with video surveillance equipment. They will videotape you coming and going from your home. They will follow you to work and shopping. They will videotape you carrying your groceries, loading and unloading the trunk of your car, gardening in your front garden, turning your head left and right as you back your car out of your driveway. They will amass tens and sometimes hundreds of hours of video in the hope that they will get some footage of you doing something that appears to be inconsistent with your claimed injuries. They try to hide the fact that they have sub rosa video in the hope that they can spring it on you during trial.

For those few and relatively rare claimants that do exaggerate or fake their injuries, getting caught is right and proper. But for the vast majority of accident victims who are merely doing their best to live and work and get by as best they can with painful or chronic injuries, this spying is an offensive invasion of privacy.

You should be forewarned about this activity, and guide yourself accordingly. Experienced trial attorneys are aware of insurance company spying and they make efforts to uncover this information before trial, keep it out of the courtroom if it exists, and neutralize its effects in the event it is produced at trial.