People often joke about exaggerating their injuries if they’re ever in a position to get a payout from a big company. While plenty of people file legitimate claims, insurance companies sometimes go out of their way to make sure a person actually has the injuries they claim.
In rare cases, the company might even go as far as hiring a private investigator to verify a story or try to catch a claimant in a lie.
That’s what happened to one man.
A Chicago investigator recently spent several shifts trying to understand the day-to-day life of a man who claims to have been injured in an Uber accident. But the investigator seems to have left with more questions than answers.
The Weirdest Stakeout
In a viral video with more than 539,000 views, Heather C (@investigatorhc) explains that she’s been a private investigator in Chicago for about five years with a company that handles insurance fraud investigations for major companies.
She was recently on a case that perplexed her. Heather says a man claimed he was injured while riding as a passenger in an Uber that got into an accident. Heather was assigned to conduct surveillance outside his apartment complex in a city about an hour from her home.
After sitting in traffic to arrive by 8 a.m., she expected to have some time to find a discreet position and wait for him to start his day. Heather says she usually has about an hour of buffer time.
“I get there at 8. At 8:15, he’s in the car. We’re leaving,” Heather says.
She knew from the case information that the man did not have a job, leaving her unsure of where he needed to be that early. She followed him approximately 45 minutes to a medical office, where he stayed for only five minutes and emerged with paperwork.
Then he drove about another hour to a different medical office in Elmwood Park. That visit lasted roughly 10 minutes.
“I'm thinking he's trying to get different medical offices to approve his injuries. Maybe some of them are denying it. So if they deny it, they tell insurance they denied it, he doesn't get paid. So it's just weird to be going to different medical offices, not the same company of medical offices, different ones,” she says.
The medical offices were only the beginning. Next the man drove into downtown Chicago and spent about 45 minutes cruising around before heading home. Altogether, she followed him for approximately five hours.
“He did literally nothing, and yet I followed him driving for five hours,” she says.
His driving made the surveillance considerably more difficult. Heather says he traveled around 50 mph on the highway while other cars passed, forcing her to move ahead of him at times and monitor him through her rearview mirror. Once downtown, however, she claims he sped through streets, ran red lights and cut in front of other vehicles.
The sudden change made Heather wonder whether he had noticed her. But after a few days she concluded that this is just how he drives.
Heather watched him for three days and it was the same each time. He left at approximately 8:15, visited different medical offices, drove downtown and eventually went home.
Heather says surveillance companies often rotate investigators to avoid a person noticing that they are being followed. One of her coworkers got assigned to tail the guy and he called Heather after struggling to keep up with the man’s unpredictable driving and the same tour of medical offices.
Now she’s stumped. In the caption, Heather asked commenters to share their theories.
“Can someone tell us what this guy does every day?” she wrote. “We are doing surveillance and don’t even know.”
Can An Insurance Company Have You Followed?
It is legal for insurance companies to have people followed. Nolo explains that insurers may hire private investigators when they suspect fraud or spot inconsistencies in an injury claim. A claim involving significant, long-term benefits may also get extra scrutiny. An investigation does not automatically mean the claimant did anything wrong, however.
Investigators can generally follow someone in public and photograph or record activities visible from public property. They may also review public social media posts, speak with neighbors or coworkers, and ask the claimant questions without identifying themselves as investigators.
But hiring a private investigator does not give an insurance company unlimited access to someone’s life. Nolo says investigators cannot trespass, enter a home without permission, hack a phone or email account, secretly access protected medical records, impersonate police or illegally place a tracking device on a vehicle. But privacy laws vary by state.
Crosley Law warns that a brief clip of a video or a photo doesn't always show the full context of a situation.They recommend claimants give doctors and insurers accurate, consistent information, follow medical restrictions and assume that public activity or social media posts could be reviewed. Someone who believes an investigator is following them should avoid a confrontation and notify their attorney.
What Protections Do Uber Passengers Have?
Uber’s insurance structure depends heavily on what the driver was doing when a crash occurred.
According to Uber, a driver’s personal auto policy applies when the driver is offline. When the driver is logged in and available but has not accepted a ride, Uber says it maintains third party liability coverage with limits of at least $50,000 per injured person, $100,000 per accident and $25,000 for property damage if the driver causes an accident.
The limits change once a driver has accepted a ride. While the driver is headed to pick up a passenger or is completing a trip, Uber says it maintains at least $1 million in liability coverage for injuries and property damage when the driver is at fault.
Commenters Share Their Take
People had mixed feelings about Uber purportedly hiring an investigator to stake out a claimant.
“The lengths insurance companies will go to to avoid paying claims. If only they put this much effort into caring about sick people and paying legit claims. So gross,” one wrote.
Other people offered theories about what the man was doing with his time.
“Sounds like whoever he lives with falsely thinks he works full time and he’s just wasting the day to make it look like that,” a person theorized.
“Seems like he might be a medical courier,” someone else suggested.
One person wondered how he didn’t realize he was being followed.
“On day one I’d notice someone following me for an hour,” they wrote.
Motor1 reached out to Heather via TikTok direct message and comment and to Uber via email. We’ll be sure to update this if either responds.
