What Made You Think It Was a Good Idea For Your Disability Claim to Post Pictures of Your Vacation on Facebook?
I wanted to continue my series on how Social Media can just kill a disability claim with what should be – but rarely is – one of the more obvious concepts about Facebook: If you go on vacation, you may have spent 90% of the trip in bed. So, why take the 10% of your trip and post it for the world to see on your Facebook wall without explaining how horrible the other 90% was?
Think about it. When one of your friends post a picture on Facebook, they rarely give you all of the context. It looks like they are having a grand old time at the beach, hiking a trail, partying with their college buddies at the reunion, etc. You have no idea what happened the minute before or the minute after. You just see the moment…and it usually is a happy one. So, why would someone with a disability claim think it is a good idea to post similar pictures?
I understand that when you suffer from a disability, you do not want to wallow in it all the time. You look for the bright spots in life to cheer you up, because you cannot do the things you used to do. However, not all of your “friends” on Facebook are actually your friends. There may well be someone lurking out there that would love to see you boast about that great time you had at the cabin in the mountains or at the beach.
Facebook pictures are just nothing but bad juju for your disability claim. There is no context. There is no detail. No one writes all of the details about how they were laid up in bed all day before they got out for a little while or how they could not do anything until their pain medication kicked in, and then the reason why they looked so smiley is that they were half out of it from the side effects of the meds. In the end, it is like you hired a private investigator to catch you in that one moment that makes you look like you could rule the world.
Don’t do it. Keep your pics private. Show your real friends…when they come over to your house and look at your photo album. Don’t show the adjuster and the disability insurance company’s attorney and their private investigator. Those people get paid to take things out of context and make you look like a liar.
If you insist on putting the pictures up on your wall, then for goodness sake….give them the gory details of what it is like to be on vacation with you….the good, the bad and the ugly. How much you lie down all day. How you are on your meds…or worse, without them. How your wife thinks you are just no fun or how your husband is bummed that he has to do stuff all alone because you cannot go out like you used to. Just don’t put a pic up there without any explanation at all, because that may be the end of your disability insurance benefits in one easy step.
Next in this series: Can the Insurance Company’s Attorney Really Use an Alias and Try to Friend Me on Facebook?
John Tucker focuses his practice on ERISA Disability and Individual Disability Insurance claims. If you would like a free consultation to discuss your ERISA or Disability Insurance claim, call (866) 282-5260.
The Private Investigator Doing Surveillance on You Says “Thank You For Sharing Your Location on Facebook.”
Continuing my series on how Social Media can impact a disability insurance claim or an ERISA disability claim, in this post I ask this question: Why in the world would you post your location for the world to see in your Facebook account if you are making a disability claim?
Here are three reasons why a disability claimant does not want to post your location on your Facebook page:
- The insurance company’s investigator knows where you are! How easy can surveillance be when you tell them where you are.
- Unless you are deleting all of your check-ins from your page, your Facebook page shows a history of all of the location postings you have had….when you are trying to prove you are disabled, your social history can hurt you, even if it is just a few times when you left your house.
- Facebook broadcasts your location check-ins. If you have mistakenly “friended” the adjuster (because they pretended to be someone else or you thought they were actually your friend), you are sending location messages to the person most likely to misconstrue your leaving your house to go somewhere.
No one says you need to be a hermit when you make a disability claim. You do not have to lock yourself in your house and never go out. However, DO NOT BROADCAST WHERE YOU ARE GOING EVERY TIME YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE!
Next in this series: What Made You Think It Was a Good Idea For Your Disability Claim To Post Pictures of Your Vacation on Facebook?
Disability Attorney John Tucker represents people in individual Disability Insurance and ERISA Disability cases. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law teaching a course in ERISA Litigation.
Your Facebook Friends May Be Your Enemies.
Continuing my series on the impact of Social Media on disability claims, I thought I would talk today about all of those “Friends” people have on Facebook.
Our starting point is that someone you do not personally know is not your “friend” if you have a disability insurance or ERISA disability claim. Why is that that our starting point? Because I have counseled more clients than I can count to stop accepting friend requests on Facebook from anyone they do not know.
Why? Because it may the insurance adjuster or the insurance company’s attorney. Seriously. I know many attorneys that defend insurance companies that tell me that they, and the claims adjusters, have aliases that they use to spy on claimants. Most people react to that and say it must be wrong, but it is not. They are not the government trapping you into doing something. They work for an insurance company you are trying to convince you are disabled. They are legally allowed to investigate you, to follow you, to video tape you. If you hold your personal life out to the world on Facebook so they can see you enough to send you a friend request, you are making mistake. When the insurance company knows you are on Facebook, they will watch your every move….every way they can.
The other type of person you have to worry about are the people you thought were your friends, but you had a falling out with. If they have seen things on your Facebook page, you should not be surprised if they contact the insurance company to tell them you are not as disabled as you say. They may be making mountains out of molehills, but their aim is to hurt you. It is not that uncommon that people with vengeance on their minds try to hurt someone’s disability claim.
My advice: Do not use any Social Media. If you just have to get on Facebook (or any other Social Media), do NOT friend anyone who is not a very close friend. And if you already friended someone, un-friend them.
Next in this series: The Private Investigator Doing Surveillance on You Thanks You For Sharing Your Location on Facebook.
John Tucker has been representing individuals in Disability Insurance claims for 20 years. You can reach Mr. Tucker at (66) 282.5260.
Disabled? So Why Are You Posting Reviews Online?
This post continues my series on Social Media and how using them can impact your disability claim. Today’s topic: posting online reviews on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook and others.
If you do not already know it, claims adjusters and insurance attorneys are scouring the internet to find information about people who are making disability claims. What you post online may hurt your case, even if you think it is an innocent comment.
Take the example of a restaurant review on Yelp. Not only does it reveal the person was out at a dinner, it may reveal the identities of friends or family that an insurer may go interview. Depending on what someone talks about, it may cast them in a bad light (excessive drinking, for example). Perhaps worst of all, comments may reveal a local hangout….an ideal source for an insurance company looking to hire an investigator to do surveillance.
The problem gets deeper though, because most people do not realize how their comments may be taken out of context. They type something knowing what happened, but someone reading the same text may not know all of the details. Consider a restaurant review that unwittingly makes the meal sound like it last for 2 hours without interruption by a person’s symptoms, restrictions or limitations. If a person making a disability claim has a problem with sitting for long, a review like this may give the impression that they went out and had no problems with sitting.
Perhaps more problematic are travel reviews. It should be obvious that reviews of your travels without a great deal of explanation can make one’s restrictions seem minimal. That is the last thing you want when you are making a disability claim. If you think no one is watching, you are fooling yourself. Even for someone like me (who does not have a disability claim), I recently found out that I have someone watching my posts on a particular site. I assure you that insurance adjusters and insurance attorneys are watching you.
So, my suggestion is eliminate your online presence if you have a disability claim. Close every account. If you must stay online with social media, be careful about what you post.
Next up in this series: Your Facebook Friends May Be Your Enemies.
For a free consultation about a Disability Insurance or ERISA Disability case, call Disability Attorney John Tucker at (866) 282-5260.
Welcome to the fourth installment in this series on how Social Media may impact your Disability Insurance or ERISA Disability claim or lawsuit. I was inspired to write this after seeing a recent tweet on Twitter from one of my clients who has been receiving disability benefits for years. I had to call my client to make sure he was not stepping in something without realizing it. After my conversation, I realized once again that most people do not realize how simple little things they put out on the internet can look.
As described by Wikipedia, “Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”. It was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 300 million users as of 2011,generating over 300 million tweets and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. It has been described as “the SMS of the Internet.” On Twitter, people have a user name (a “handle” so to speak). For example, you can find me on Twitter @DisabledLaw. They list a description about themselves, and often post their name in the description. People post (or “tweet”) all kinds of things to Twitter: what they had for lunch, where they are, links to interesting articles on the internet, comments on others people’s tweets. People can tweets from a computer, as well as through apps on smart phones and tablets like iPads.
So, here is what grabs my attention. My client…lets call him “Bob” to protect his identity….tweets: “Had a great time fishing with [son's name].” That’s it. Bob tells us no more than that. As it happens, Bob has physical conditions that affect his ability to sit, stand, reach, and lift. I am left with wondering several things about Bob’s foray into fishing:
- How was Bob able to go fishing at all?
- Was this really a fishing trip or did Bob go and accompany his son to the Pier for a little while?
- How often do they fish?
- Was this a trip lasting a few days or was it just a short time?
- How old is Bob’s son? Did Bob have to do all the work or did his son help?
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Perhaps more disturbing is that Bob had no idea how this would look when he sent the tweet. He did not realize someone would have questions like this,nor did he realize that an insurance adjuster or investigator might try to track him on Twitter. He thought it was a meaningless tweet with innocent information.
Not so. Someone can see what you are posting on Twitter if you do not restrict that information to followers. On top of that, anyone can follow you on Twitter….most people don't mind having more followers….that is the point after all.</
However, when you post on Twitter, you have to think through how someone might read what you just typed in 140 characters or less. For my client Bob, it turns out that his version of fishing was baiting the hook for his son, and they only stayed out for about an hour. We were able to immediately get the details to be prepared for what an adjuster might ask, or be in a position to respond to a benefit termination.
I recommend to my clients that they discontinue using Social Media like Twitter. It can only cause you problems when dealing with insurance companies who are getting more savvy about looking for this kind of information. If you absolutely need Twitter (and you don't, by the way), you have to be careful and think through what you tweet. Do not tweet anything that can be used to conclude that you have abilities you do not have. More important, be sure not to tweet something that might suggest you can engage in activities that you do not able to do.
The next post in this series: Disabled? So, why are you posting reviews online?
Disability Attorney John Tucker represents people making disability claims throughout the United States. For a free call consultation, call (866) 282-5260.
Even Though You Hide Your Facebook Wall, the Disability Insurance Company May Still Get to See It
This is the third installment of my series on Facebook and other Social Media as they relate to Disability Insurance and ERISA Disability claims and lawsuits. Today’s topic deals with a common question I get from my clients: “If hide my Facebook wall, will the disability insurance company be able to get access to it?“
Actually, most people don’t say it that way. Instead, they tell me: “Oh, Facebook is not a problem. I hid my wall.”
Really? Nope. Don’t count on it. Just because you hide your Facebook wall does not mean that someone will not see it.
First, investigators tell me there are ways to see someone’s wall (or at least parts of it) on Facebook even if they “hide” it.
Second, if you have a Facebook page, you still have a profile picture and your name and basic info out on the web. At the very least, the disability insurance adjuster knows you have a Facebook profile, they just cannot see it. They may simply ask you to produce copies of your content. If you refuse, they may threaten to or actually deny or terminate your claim. “They can’t do that!” you say. Maybe, but you will need to sue them to get them to undo it and start paying benefits. That will cost you time and money…and you will not have your disability income coming while you sue them. Do you need that hassle?
Third, I-T guys tell me that there are also web pages that allow someone to see webpages that were posted in the past. Even if you close your wall now, I have had web guys tell me that some or all of it may still be cached somewhere in the cloud for others to view.
Fourth – and perhaps the most problematic – if your disability claim turns into a lawsuit because the disability insurance company denies it, a judge has the power to make you produce copies of EVERY page, picture, post, etc. in the discovery phase of the lawsuit. A judge could also make you produce your username and password. More and more, insurance company attorneys are trying to discover the content of your Facebook and other social media accounts. You can expect to receive requests to identify your online username and to identify what online social media you use. You may also get request to identify your Facebook friends’ identities.
If you think that the solution is to lie and respond to an insurance adjuster’s or insurance defense attorney’s discovery requests by saying that you do not have any online social media accounts, think again. Depending on how the adjuster asks, a non-truthful or not totally complete answer could be insurance fraud, a felony. If you are in a lawsuit, your state’s perjury, contempt, and discovery laws may cause you problems. While a judge may not throw you in jail for lying in discovery, you may face a serious penalty like having your lawsuit dismissed or being forced to pay the insurance company’s attorney fees and costs.
In the end, hiding your Facebook wall likely will not hide much of anything from your disability insurance company. I recommend you go back to the second article in this series, Happy New Year!…Now Lets Talk About Whether You Want a Facebook Account.
Next in this series: Are you a twit if you tweet on your Twitter account when you have a disability insurance claim?
Disability claim denied? Call Attorney John Tucker for a free consultation – nationwide toll free: (866) 282-5260.
Happy New Year! This is my first post of 2012, and it continues a series I started last week on how your presence on Social Media (like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) can impact Disability Insurance and ERISA Disability claims.
The problem with Social Media is that they work as free surveillance for disability insurance companies and ERISA plan administrators deciding claims. Everything you put on the web will be scrutinized when you are making a disability claim. If you have any Social Media account online, and:
- you are filing a disability claim through your employer’s disability plan (an ERISA plan)
- you are filing in an individual disability insurance claim;
- you were recently denied by your employer’s ERISA Disability plan administrator (usually a disability insurance company like UNUM, Aetna, MetLife, Prudential, SunLife, Liberty Life, etc.) and are going through an appeal;
- you are receiving monthly benefits under your Disability Insurance or ERISA Disability plan, particularly if you are coming up on a change in your policy’s/plan’s definition of disability; or
- you recently received a letter from the disability insurance company or ERISA plan administrator asking you to fill out some forms to “update your case”
there will be adjusters and investigators searching you out. You want to give some hard thought to whether you should have any online presence whatsoever. In particular, you should consider closing all of your Social Media accounts.
When I say “close your social media accounts,” I do not mean making your your Facebook page invisible to those who are not your friends. I mean shutting your account down.
Why? Because insurance adjusters and investigators for insurance companies have figured out that your Facebook and other Social Media provide more information than video surveillance ever could. Not only can an adjuster sit at their computer and do an entire public records search about you online, but if they find you on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (does anyone really still have a MySpace account?), Google+, etc., they may find something about you that they can use against you. What they find does not have to show you working. If an insurance adjuster or investigator visits your Facebook page and finds something that calls into to question your honesty, then your disability claim may be heading for the termination pile.
Oh, but you say you would never put something on Facebook that would hurt your disability claim. The problem is, most people never realize all of the possible things people may take away from a picture on the internet. That is why young college kids today may someday hate themselves for posting those crazy pictures from last semester. Here’s an example that might apply to you: last month you filled out a disability form explaining that you can only stand 20 to 30 minutes at a time, and last night you posted pictures from the New Year’s Eve party you went to….the only problem is that none of the pictures you posted show a chair in sight. In this example, a disbelieving adjuster’s takeaway might be that you were on your feet all night long…and that is inconsistent with the form you sent them. Even if there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for what happened (say, in my example, all of the pictures were taken in the backyard, but you kept going inside the house to sit down every 20 minutes), it may not matter.
So, why give the insurance company or ERISA plan administrator a window into your life? Why give them free surveillance? Worse, why give them information that may mean nothing, but taken out of context makes you look bad?
The answer: do not give it to them.
As an attorney that has handled thousands of disability claims over 20 years, I cannot stress to you enough how seemingly simply things can seriously harm your credibility and your claim. Putting up those pictures of the awesome New Year’s Party you went to last night can only hurt you. It can never help you when it comes to your disability insurance or ERISA Disability claim. The same applies for your posts about where you went or what you did…even if it was boring stuff that you do not think shows you have abilities to work. If you want to protect your monthly disability income, seriously consider closing your Facebook and other Social Media pages.
Next in the series: Why hiding your Facebook profile is not enough.
Disability Attorney John Tucker handles Disability Insurance and ERISA Disability claims throughout the United States. Call (866) 282-5260 today for a free consultation about your case.
What Is the Elimination Period Under My Company’s Disability Plan?
Most Long Term Disability (‘LTD’) plans offered through an employer (called ERISA plans, because they are covered by the federal ERISA law) have a waiting period before you can collect LTD benefits. This is a period of time when you have to be disabled, but they do not pay you benefits. If you stay disabled through this time period, your LTD benefits start. The elimination period may be 30 days, 60 days, 180 days or even longer. In many companies, the Short Term Disability benefit plan pays you during the LTD elimination period. Read your company’s plan documents to know how your benefits will be paid.
If you have questions about your Long Term Disability Plan, please call Disability Attorney John Tucker at (727) 572-5000.
What is an “Own Occupation” Definition of Disability?
Most ERISA Disability plans have a period of time when they will pay benefits based upon a person’s inability to do the duties of their own occupation. This is called an “own occupation” definition of disability. It can be compared to an “any occupation” definition – one that pays benefits based upon a person not being able to perform the duties of any occupation.
Own occupation definitions are better for employees, because the employee only has to show they cannot do their own occupation. Having to prove that one cannot do any occupation is much more difficult. That is one reason why most ERISA Disability plans change to an any occupation. It makes it easier for the disability plan administrator to stop paying benefits. A common term for the time frame when a disabled person moves from the “own occupation” to the “any occupation” definition is called the “test change.” At the time of the test change, the administrator (usually the disability insurance company) evaluates whether a person can do any job, rather than just their own job.
Speaking of jobs, be sure to look at your company’s ERISA Disability plan document. Sometimes, when an own occupation definition is used in an ERISA plan, it will define your occupation to be the job you were doing. However, most of the time, disability plans define “own occupation” to be your job as it is performed in the general economy. So, you may be yacht salesman, but the ERISA plan administrator may be looking at any type of salesman in the economy.
If you have been denied disability benefits because an ERISA plan administrator decided you could do your own occupation or because the definition of disability changed to any occupation, call ERISA Disability Attorney John Tucker at (866) 282-5260 for a free consultation.
Copyright 2011. John Tucker. All rights reserved.
