SINGAPORE: Demand is rising among private investigation firms in Singapore, for a different type of surveillance: To verify whether work injury claimants have genuine injuries.
While fraudulent work injury claims have been put under the spotlight in recent days, non-government organisations told CNA that such cases were extremely rare among low-wage migrant workers.
They urged against making sweeping generalisations, pointing out they have witnessed instances where injured workers were unable to get fair compensation.
The issue was sparked by the death of Ms Jane Lee, owner of local business Sumo Salad, who had published Facebook posts about a foreign employee who allegedly filed a false work injury claim to get compensation.
The Manpower Ministry (MOM) subsequently said it had been in communication with Ms Lee before her death, and that investigations into the claim were ongoing.
The worker involved was covered under the Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA), and MOM said it was working with the employee's insurer to "assess the validity of the case".
On Thursday (Jul 24), Minister of State for Manpower Dinesh Vasu Dash reiterated that MOM was probing the matter and working with the insurer.
He said that in cases of "egregious" behaviour by employees, action has to be taken; but added it was also important to find incentives for workers and employers "to model the right behaviour" for their health, safety and well-being.
Last year, 26,843 work injury claims were awarded. The total compensation payout was S$138.2 million (US$108.4 million).
CNA has asked MOM for data on the number of fraudulent work injury claims detected, and how officers go about verifying work injury claims.
CNA has also reached out to multiple insurers for more information on how they typically verify work injury claims.
Three private investigation firms – Asia Top Investigation, Detective Don PI and Eyes Private Investigator – told CNA they have recorded a surge in requests to investigate potentially fraudulent work claims.
They said the cases come mostly from the construction sector, with some in the food-and-beverage and service-related industries.
Mr Ivan Tan, operations manager and investigator at Asia Top Investigation, said his firm dealt with 15 such cases last year.
Five years ago, the agency would get about five enquiries a year. Last year, they received two to three enquiries a month.
Mark (not his real name), the director of Eyes Private Investigator, said that in the past one-and-a-half years, his firm has received four to five enquiries every week and taken on an average of two cases a week.
Previously, they used to take up one to two cases every fortnight.
Four out of nine investigators at Eyes focus on work injury cases. Mark estimated that he alone has handled 50 to 60 such cases, which he said mostly involved foreign workers.
The private investigators CNA spoke to said their work can take anywhere from a day to two weeks.
Mr Tan from Asia Top charges S$1,800 for up to eight hours of surveillance on weekdays, and S$2,100 on weekends.
Two licensed private investigators will follow the subject to gather photo and video evidence of his or her activities, and produce a report for the client which can also be submitted to court as evidence, said Mr Tan. Investigators are sometimes also called to testify in court to back up their report.
"We don't try to force the narrative into one direction. However, if let's say the worker indeed is faking injury, what we do is we try to focus on that specific body part which she claims is injured and is not functioning well," he said.
One case he worked on involved a dishwasher with a finger injury who was found moonlighting as a waitress. "Her fingers are working fine because (she) can serve food, (she) can carry plates," said Mr Tan.
Then there was an administrative worker in a private clinic who resigned and took extended medical leave citing "different ailments". But investigators found her working for her employer's competitor during her notice period.
According to Mr Tan, in all 15 cases his firm investigated last year, there was evidence that the injuries were feigned.
For Mark, he recalled one to three cases out of his firm's entire portfolio where no such evidence was found.
The investigators said that after submitting their reports, they typically do not keep track of cases all the way to resolution.
But Mark has received feedback from some clients, of employees withdrawing their work injury claims after being confronted with the evidence.
Lawyer Ray Louis told CNA he once advised an employer in a dispute with a cleaner, who filed a claim for a back injury from a fall. An investigator followed her and obtained evidence of her moving around “normally”.
Mr Louis said that while this employer still could not prove that the worker’s injury was fake, he was able to show that it was not as serious as she had made it out to be. “It forced the claimant to settle at a lower amount,” said the lawyer.
CNA has also contacted business associations to ask if fraudulent work injury claims are an issue among its members.
The last known case to be publicised was in 2021, when two foreign workers were convicted for making fraudulent WICA claims in 2019. According to an MOM release, one was found to have staged a fall, while the other said his injury was sustained at work when it did not.
Under WICA, employees in Singapore who are injured in work accidents or suffer diseases due to work can make claims without having to file a civil suit under common law.
According to MOM, one remains eligible to claim for compensation even if he or she no longer works for the employer or their work pass is cancelled.
Workers can claim medical leave wages; medical expenses including hospital bills; and a lump sum compensation for permanent incapacity, current incapacity or death.
Speaking to CNA, Transient Workers Count 2 (TWC2) vice-president Alex Au said the NGO sees more than a thousand injury cases a year, with no more than “one or two” cases where they have doubts over the veracity of the claim.
“We are talking about a real drop in the ocean,” he said.
If anything, low-wage migrant workers in particular often find that the “balance of proof” is stacked against them when they suffer injuries at the workplace, said Mr Au.
This could be due to employers who "control" various forms of evidence which could have been used by workers to make legitimate claims, he added. As a result, the subsequent insurance report would state that the injured worker's account was not corroborated by any evidence.
"These are the reasons why we think that the percentage of invalid claims is probably higher than really fraudulent claim(s)," said Mr Au.
Ms Dipa Swaminathan, founder of charity and migrant worker advocacy group ItsRainingRaincoats, warned against painting all workers with the same “tainted brush”.
“Every single time they have an injury … if there’s going to be an assumption that they’re making it up, can you imagine how hard their life is?” she said. “We have seen the other side of the story, where even for genuine workplace injuries, they’re not able to get any compensation.”
Ms Swaminathan said her organisation has never seen a fraudulent case in 10 years of working with migrant workers.
Former Nominated Member of Parliament Anthea Ong, a council member of a community initiative helping migrant workers pay for critical illness treatments not covered by their mandatory insurance, was concerned about the potential fallout from WICA coming under the spotlight.
“If every employer is now going to be a little bit suspicious and don’t act on it when their workers have met with an accident at the workplace, that might mean that those workers who really, genuinely need immediate emergency attention may not get that and that could put their lives at risk,” she said.
"We must take care not to have one bad actor make everyone else bad.”
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While fraudulent work injury claims have been put under the spotlight in recent days, non-government organisations told CNA that such cases were extremely rare among low-wage migrant workers.
They urged against making sweeping generalisations, pointing out they have witnessed instances where injured workers were unable to get fair compensation.
The issue was sparked by the death of Ms Jane Lee, owner of local business Sumo Salad, who had published Facebook posts about a foreign employee who allegedly filed a false work injury claim to get compensation.
The Manpower Ministry (MOM) subsequently said it had been in communication with Ms Lee before her death, and that investigations into the claim were ongoing.
The worker involved was covered under the Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA), and MOM said it was working with the employee's insurer to "assess the validity of the case".
On Thursday (Jul 24), Minister of State for Manpower Dinesh Vasu Dash reiterated that MOM was probing the matter and working with the insurer.
He said that in cases of "egregious" behaviour by employees, action has to be taken; but added it was also important to find incentives for workers and employers "to model the right behaviour" for their health, safety and well-being.
Related:
Last year, 26,843 work injury claims were awarded. The total compensation payout was S$138.2 million (US$108.4 million).
CNA has asked MOM for data on the number of fraudulent work injury claims detected, and how officers go about verifying work injury claims.
CNA has also reached out to multiple insurers for more information on how they typically verify work injury claims.
MORE ENQUIRIES, MORE CASES
Three private investigation firms – Asia Top Investigation, Detective Don PI and Eyes Private Investigator – told CNA they have recorded a surge in requests to investigate potentially fraudulent work claims.
They said the cases come mostly from the construction sector, with some in the food-and-beverage and service-related industries.
Mr Ivan Tan, operations manager and investigator at Asia Top Investigation, said his firm dealt with 15 such cases last year.
Five years ago, the agency would get about five enquiries a year. Last year, they received two to three enquiries a month.
Mark (not his real name), the director of Eyes Private Investigator, said that in the past one-and-a-half years, his firm has received four to five enquiries every week and taken on an average of two cases a week.
Previously, they used to take up one to two cases every fortnight.
Four out of nine investigators at Eyes focus on work injury cases. Mark estimated that he alone has handled 50 to 60 such cases, which he said mostly involved foreign workers.
The private investigators CNA spoke to said their work can take anywhere from a day to two weeks.
Mr Tan from Asia Top charges S$1,800 for up to eight hours of surveillance on weekdays, and S$2,100 on weekends.
Two licensed private investigators will follow the subject to gather photo and video evidence of his or her activities, and produce a report for the client which can also be submitted to court as evidence, said Mr Tan. Investigators are sometimes also called to testify in court to back up their report.
"We don't try to force the narrative into one direction. However, if let's say the worker indeed is faking injury, what we do is we try to focus on that specific body part which she claims is injured and is not functioning well," he said.
One case he worked on involved a dishwasher with a finger injury who was found moonlighting as a waitress. "Her fingers are working fine because (she) can serve food, (she) can carry plates," said Mr Tan.
Then there was an administrative worker in a private clinic who resigned and took extended medical leave citing "different ailments". But investigators found her working for her employer's competitor during her notice period.
According to Mr Tan, in all 15 cases his firm investigated last year, there was evidence that the injuries were feigned.
For Mark, he recalled one to three cases out of his firm's entire portfolio where no such evidence was found.
The investigators said that after submitting their reports, they typically do not keep track of cases all the way to resolution.
But Mark has received feedback from some clients, of employees withdrawing their work injury claims after being confronted with the evidence.
Lawyer Ray Louis told CNA he once advised an employer in a dispute with a cleaner, who filed a claim for a back injury from a fall. An investigator followed her and obtained evidence of her moving around “normally”.
Mr Louis said that while this employer still could not prove that the worker’s injury was fake, he was able to show that it was not as serious as she had made it out to be. “It forced the claimant to settle at a lower amount,” said the lawyer.
CNA has also contacted business associations to ask if fraudulent work injury claims are an issue among its members.
The last known case to be publicised was in 2021, when two foreign workers were convicted for making fraudulent WICA claims in 2019. According to an MOM release, one was found to have staged a fall, while the other said his injury was sustained at work when it did not.
Related:
"A REAL DROP IN THE OCEAN"
Under WICA, employees in Singapore who are injured in work accidents or suffer diseases due to work can make claims without having to file a civil suit under common law.
According to MOM, one remains eligible to claim for compensation even if he or she no longer works for the employer or their work pass is cancelled.
Workers can claim medical leave wages; medical expenses including hospital bills; and a lump sum compensation for permanent incapacity, current incapacity or death.
Speaking to CNA, Transient Workers Count 2 (TWC2) vice-president Alex Au said the NGO sees more than a thousand injury cases a year, with no more than “one or two” cases where they have doubts over the veracity of the claim.
“We are talking about a real drop in the ocean,” he said.
If anything, low-wage migrant workers in particular often find that the “balance of proof” is stacked against them when they suffer injuries at the workplace, said Mr Au.
This could be due to employers who "control" various forms of evidence which could have been used by workers to make legitimate claims, he added. As a result, the subsequent insurance report would state that the injured worker's account was not corroborated by any evidence.
"These are the reasons why we think that the percentage of invalid claims is probably higher than really fraudulent claim(s)," said Mr Au.
Ms Dipa Swaminathan, founder of charity and migrant worker advocacy group ItsRainingRaincoats, warned against painting all workers with the same “tainted brush”.
“Every single time they have an injury … if there’s going to be an assumption that they’re making it up, can you imagine how hard their life is?” she said. “We have seen the other side of the story, where even for genuine workplace injuries, they’re not able to get any compensation.”
Ms Swaminathan said her organisation has never seen a fraudulent case in 10 years of working with migrant workers.
Former Nominated Member of Parliament Anthea Ong, a council member of a community initiative helping migrant workers pay for critical illness treatments not covered by their mandatory insurance, was concerned about the potential fallout from WICA coming under the spotlight.
“If every employer is now going to be a little bit suspicious and don’t act on it when their workers have met with an accident at the workplace, that might mean that those workers who really, genuinely need immediate emergency attention may not get that and that could put their lives at risk,” she said.
"We must take care not to have one bad actor make everyone else bad.”
Related:
Continue reading...