Facebook Has a New Friend: Disability Insurers

More than 2 billion people log on to Facebook each month, but for one group of people, the decision to log on can be a dangerous one. People receiving monthly disability payments are increasingly discovering that the insurers paying their benefits are reviewing their social media activities for information that could cast doubt on their disability.

Social media monitoring is a growing practice in which insurers or third party investigators review a person’s online footprint for information relevant to their claimed disability. In the past few years, Principal Life, Sun Life, Aetna, First Reliance Standard, MetLife ...