FIC using social media to investigate insurance fraud

Narrator: Forensic Investigations Canada or FIC, is a national investigation firm that provides site security, surveillance, information services and investigative services for a variety of clients including the insurance industry. ILSTV sat down with Len Copp, VP of Operations for FIC about one of their most effective tools for investigating insurance fraud.

Len Copp: Social media has been a great boon to our investigation approach. When Facebook first became popular 90% of the people were unfamiliar with the security settings, and we have experts in each office that are social media experts, so they spend many, many hours doing investigations through Facebook, MySpace and some of the other popular social media outlets. We've done investigations that are centred all on Facebook. We are not even leaving the office. As Facebook has progressed, obviously there are new security levels, but it's still a great tool for us to identify and locate individuals and get a good idea of what they're into in their day to day lives.

Narrator: Sometimes social media is not enough and investigators have to hit the streets. So what kind of person does it take to do surveillance?

Len Copp: When you are in the investigative services department, we are looking for people that have spent time taking statements and doing investigations, so either law enforcement people, former insurance personnel. Our surveillance operatives come from all walks of life, and it's funny when we talk about surveillance, you need to be able to be by yourself and have common sense. We have people with varying degrees of education and some people who just stumble into surveillance and find a real niche for them.

Narrator: There are times when surveillance reveals more about a person than expected. Len shares an example:

Len Copp: We're looking into an insurance investigation, someone who's filed an injury claim and we'll initiate our pre-surveillance and our desk top investigations, and before we get curb side we prepare ourselves. But not everyone partakes in social media. So on one occasion, first day of surveillance, your normal looking average Joe comes out of his garage, and he's wearing a Hell's Angel vest, so sometimes when you are involved in an insurance investigations, you're getting into the lives of people who are just making an insurance claim, but you're stumbling into a life that is drastically different than what we see day to day.

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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• insurance
• news
• social media
• investiation
• canada
• fraud

[ecofriendlyS]

WHy don't you investigate the lies of the insurance companies who trying to cut people off the compensation unfairly ? Of course because it's much harder to get in pants of corporate office rather then ordenary civilian.