Can Insurance Companies Hire Private Investigators? – The Levin Firm

Transcript

Private investigators, are you being watched after an accident? It depends on the nature of your accident and the amount that's in dispute. I find that in smaller accidents, insurance companies don't spend the money for a private investigator because the amount in dispute isn't that great. In cases that are much larger where the injuries are alleged to be very catastrophic and the policy limits are large, hundreds of thousands of dollars, now this is a scenario where an insurance company may choose to hire a private investigator. What they're trying to do is videotape and take pictures of you doing things that are inconsistent with what you should be able to do based on the injuries that you're alleging.

The problem that I have with private investigators and, and what I find occurs with shocking regularity is that they'll go out and they'll videotape and they'll confirm your injuries. With the videotape. They'll confirm your harm with photographs and other forms of surveillance, and then they won't turn it over. Or they'll only turn over the portions of the video that they think confirms what they were trying to find and then leave the rest out. There's been several cases I had where I had to file motions to compel the defense to give me the entirety of their surveillance file because they were trying to utilize short 3, 5-second clips of my client walking.

Well, I know that they didn't have only 5 seconds of video, right? This was probably a half hour worth of recording. And when I got the rest of the video and put into context that short 3 to 5-second clip that they were trying to utilize, it showed that my client was in fact injured, that they were limping. Again, if you think you're being watched, if you see the same person following you or the same car, Very well might be an insurance investigator trying to catch you doing something you shouldn't be doing. But what we do is tell the truth and fight for truth.

Then this is not something that should ever hurt you. But always tell your lawyer if you think that's happening, and they can look into it and take appropriate actions.