Surveillance by income protection insurer- I am being followed, I think

Emmia

lassfarfromhome said:

Emmia said:

Have you thought about approaching them and asking if they're following you?

Thanks, but I see only downsides.  First, as LightFlare says, it has the potential to be dangerous if the person is not, in fact, acting on behalf of the insurers.  Second, they will not admit to following me or that they are doing so on behalf of the insurers.  It simply alerts them to the fact that I know they are there, so they can change the person/strategy, and doesn't get me any confirmation of what they are doing or not.  Right now, I have an advantage (I know I am being watched, and they don't know that I know) which I would be very unwise to give up.

Then photograph them (risky if they're actually stalking you, and notice they're being photographed) and report it to the police.

Do you have any reason to believe you're being stalked? Do you know the person following you?

If it's the insurer, I can completely understand why the insurer paying you would want to be sure you are affected in the way you're claiming, especially with a long-term ongoing claim. There are far too many media stories of people recovering, but failing ("forgetting") to tell the insurer and being caught out.

rigolith

Being followed is reason enough to call 999.

marcia_

 This sounds scary. I would stop and see what they do, go a different way than usual see if they are still there. And yes I would report to the police 

eddddy

FWIW, something similar was happening to somebody I know who was making a similar claim.

He told me he phoned the insurer asking if it was them. He told the insurer that if it wasn't them, he was going to contact the police, because he was worried about his family's safety. He said the insurer eventually admitted it was them.

DullGreyGuy

eddddy said:

FWIW, something similar was happening to somebody I know who was making a similar claim.

He told me he phoned the insurer asking if it was them. He told the insurer that if it wasn't them, he was going to contact the police, because he was worried about his family's safety. He said the insurer eventually admitted it was them.

This can be the fact that the front line staff aren't privy to what the more technical teams are doing. Ex used to work in counter fraud for ASU claims and they had a whole separate IT system for their case management etc. They very occasionally used investigators when there were concerns that an illness/injury may not be as debilitating as is being claimed. 

user1977

eddddy said:

FWIW, something similar was happening to somebody I know who was making a similar claim.

He told me he phoned the insurer asking if it was them. He told the insurer that if it wasn't them, he was going to contact the police, because he was worried about his family's safety. He said the insurer eventually admitted it was them.

Like I said above, just contact the police anyway, surely? You don't need to do your own preliminary research. If the police discover it's merely a private investigator, then no harm done. You're not wasting police time.

lassfarfromhome

Thank you to everyone who commented. I really appreciate it. I am going to report what happened to the police

eddddy

lassfarfromhome said:

Thank you to everyone who commented. I really appreciate it. I am going to report what happened to the police

The police will almost certainly ask you if you have any suspicions about who might be following you and why.

When you say you think it could be the insurance company's people, I suspect the police will tell you to contact them to find out.

(Unless the insurance company's agent is doing something illegal, the police won't be interested. I doubt they'll want to get involved in phoning the insurance company to ask on your behalf.)