Facial hair, tattoos and other important information for injured workers in Illinois

A caller recently injured his back on the job.  Similar to most clients he's a nice guy, hard worker and had never had a work injury before.  As a result he was really taken aback when the insurance adjuster called him and instead of asking how he was feeling focused on things that to his mind had nothing to do with his case.  For example: "Do you have facial hair?  Any distinguishing moles?  How about tattoos?  Long hair or short hair?  Are you overweight?"

The reason for these questions are because the not so subtle insurance adjuster is going to order surveillance on this guy to see if he's faking it or to see that even if he's hurt if they can catch him doing something that a person with a back injury shouldn't do like mow the lawn or rake leaves.  But of course those things do need to happen so unless your doctor has told you that you can't do that or those activities cause you more pain, you have to live your life.

As stated many times over in this blog, just be honest and things will work out.  But this is a good example of how these cases really work.  The worker is focused on their health and getting better.  The insurance company wants to see if they can get a "gotcha" moment and save themselves some money.