Insurer Uses Employee's Facebook Postings to Deny Benefits

A Canadian insurance company has ceased payment of sick-leave benefits to a woman who had been out of work for more than a year and a half due to depression. A former IBM employee claims that she called her insurance company when her monthly sick-leave checks stopped coming and was told that she was deemed as able to return to work based on what it had found on her Facebook page. The evidence the insurance company allegedly based its cessation of benefits upon was the employee's Facebook page, upon which the employee had posted photos of herself on at the beach and at a Chippendale’s show. The insurance company would not comment on the employee's specific case, but in a written statement sent to CBC News, the insurer said: "We would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook." It did confirm, however, that it uses the popular social networking site to investigate clients.



See http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/11/19/quebec-facebook-sick-leave-benefits.html for the complete story.