As an organization Litigation Solutions prides itself on providing cost effective solutions to the financial risk associated with the claims industry. In 2009, we added a product that takes advantage of the explosion of social networking sites to do an on-line investigation we call DiggiT. When you consider that Facebook now has over 750 million users, and that 50% of those users log on daily, or that YouTube serves up more than one billion new videos per DAY, or that Twitter is on pace to process well more than 10 billion tweets this year, you can see why we focused on the social networking boom as an area to provide value!
DiggiT is an excellent tool in the claims arena for several reasons:
Cost-The cost of a DiggiT is under $400.00, and can be as inexpensive as $189.00;
Scope-A DiggiT can be performed on a subject anywhere, at any time;
Quick Turnaround Time-usually completed in under one week and can be done on a Rush basis;
High return on investment typically at least 10:1 on volume;
Unique Results;
Stealth-There is no risk of detection from our internet search.
Some people ask us when to use a DiggiT, and my answer is generally anytime you think that a low cost, low risk investigation may give you information that would be useful to your claim. More specifically, you can use it in conjunction with any surveillance or activity check for a more complete profile, on older surveillance cases that have netted minimal results, on a targetted demographic like all claims that have more than 2 weeks lost time with a claimant between the ages of 18-35, or on all high exposure cases in litigation based on the risk/reward associated with the service. For the price point, it is a service you can be aggressive with, and use almost as a tool for "fishing."
I am also asked what does a DiggiT typically find? Well, there are a number of things a DiggiT can find including pictures or video of your subject engaging in physical activity counter to their claims, or evidence of income that they allegedly do not have, or future plans so that you can set up a more focused and effective surveillance, or clues as to hobbies, interests, and residence set up. Remember a fully filled out profile usually contains about 40 pieces of recognizably personal information, including but not limited to name, birthdate, online and offline contact information, gender, relationship status, employment history, and often times their photograph!
Many adjusters and risk managers think that they already do what they may call a "Facebook" search, or internet search, and ask why they should spend the money to let us do this service. Their are many reasons. The first of which is the depth of the search. We include what we call a quick internet search on the bigger social networking sites as part of our pre-surveillance work up that is likely similar to what a typical claims person may have time to do. It takes 15-20 minutes, and hits the highlights of the top social networking sites for the subject, hoping for an obvious hit like an open account that is not marked private for Facebook or Myspace. A DiggiT, does much more than that. First, it takes the vital statistics given by the client and matches those through a database to any and all email addresses associated with the subject. It is not uncommon for a person to have multiple email addresses to open multiple accounts on-line, many of which are much more difficult to find. Then, those email addresses are matched to the existence of an account linked to the subject on any one of 200+ social networking sites. This is a MUCH more thorough search that uses the fingerprint of the cyber world, the email address, or ADDRESSES instead of the subject's name to locate internet activity that may exist under a fictitious name or on a more obscure site that the average person would never find. In addition, remember that more and more profiles are marked private or partially private making it tougher to get what you are looking for. But, our Diggers, will take the time to search the entire friend list looking for public or partially public profiles where the subject may have pictures, videos or text posted that is not private! If their friend or family member do not carry the same privacy level, their communications will be public on the friend's site. A DiggiT can take from 3 to 5 hours to conduct, but will combine a combination of national databases, custom algorithms, a criminal/civil search, and a trained investigator scouring not only the subjects information, but that of their social networking "friends." This is more time than a typical claims handler can afford to put into a search and given the potential savings in lost wages, future medical, claims costs, and litigation expenses for the price point, a DiggiT is a low cost, high value tool to use for your claims.
Despite the effectiveness of the service, don't be fooled by outrageous claims some vendors will make. We have done 6,000 of these over the past two years, and we will find something you did not tell us on many of these, if not most. However, it is about two of ten that return information that directly affects the value of your claim. However, the cost of ten Diggits, will usually be under $3,700 and the return on the ones with direct findings will typically be WAY more than that, with an average ROI for every ten claims placed at more than 10:1, and sometimes well more than that. We have had several DiggiTs that our clients have told us resulted in more than six figures in savings for a service with no risk, and at a cost under $400.00! Finally, our team is always evaluating different ways to increase our findings in this area, including the newer location based social networking sites. We can be flexible in pricing for larger volume projects or formal DiggiT programs. Please contact me if you have any additional questions about this exciting new avenue of claims mitigation.
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