Surveillance

No, investigators are not permitted to document claimants inside of their residence, whether through an open window or door to the home. Claimants have a “right to privacy”, even if able to be observed inside of their residence from the roadside. However, if a claimant can be observed inside of an open garage or a front or rear screened-in porch area or anywhere else on their property, and these areas are in view to the public, an investigator would be able to document the claimant in those situations.

Occasionally, our investigators will run into situations where a claimant can be observed or partially observed through a privacy fence in a back yard, whether it’s through a damaged area on a privacy fence, cracks in the fence, etc. In this situation, the investigator would not be permitted to obtain this video, due to the right of privacy of the claimant. If a claimant can be observed through a chain link fence, and this activity can be observed from the public, the investigator would be able to obtain video documentation.

Covert documentation is permitted on all surveillance files when the claimant is out in public, whether in department stores, shopping malls, convenience stores, sporting events, and anywhere else that the claimant can be observed in a public setting. In a situation when the claimant is attending a church service or a funeral, our operations team will most likely reach out to the client for authorization to obtain covert video at these locations.

This would depend on the claimant and if pretexting is allowed. On cases that pretexting is not permitted, we will run comprehensive database searches for alternate addresses, registered vehicles, driver’s license information and property ownership. Our operations team will also check any pertinent information over the internet, to include social media searches, criminal and civil searches on a state and county level through various websites, check property appraiser websites, vehicle registrations and tax collector’s offices, etc. On files that pretexting is allowed, our team would conduct all of the aforementioned locate efforts, to include gathering information in person and over the phone with neighbors, claimants’ family members and claimants themselves with client authorization.

 We will normally start a new surveillance at 6 a.m. during the week and 7 a.m. on the weekend. After the investigator establishes a pattern of activity from a particular claimant, we will most likely adjust start times to cover all times of the day to get the best results possible.

On a typical surveillance, the investigator will normally conduct surveillance for an 8 hour period to obtain the best results. However, this would also depend on what a client is looking for, and the majority of our surveillance files at Ethos range anywhere from 4 hours to 12 hours. Please keep in mind that the longer the surveillance lasts, the higher opportunity to obtain claimant video on any given day.

We have nationwide coverage at Ethos Risk Services, to include both Hawaii and Alaska. We employ over 1,200 investigators across the country to cover all surveillance files.