Who would have guessed? Insurance companies can now deny mental health coverage thanks to Facebook photos! According to an article from CBC News,

“A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave is fighting to have her benefits reinstated after her employer’s insurance company cut them, she says, because of photos posted on Facebook.”

The woman, Nathalie Blanchard, had been on sick-leave because of a longtime bout with depression. How did Manulife know she wasn’t depressed anymore? Because of pictures like the one found below.

That’s it, huh? Well, I guess she looks reasonably happy standing there on the beach, but does that really mean she isn’t still suffering from depression? Blanchard’s lawyer, Tom Lavin, says no.

“I don’t think for judging a mental state that Facebook is a very good tool,” he said, adding that he has requested another psychiatric evaluation for Blanchard.

“It’s not as if somebody had a broken back and there was a picture of them carrying with a load of bricks,” Lavin said. “My client was diagnosed with a major depression. And there were pictures of her on Facebook, in a party or having a good time. It could be that she was just trying to escape.”

While I certainly feel for Ms. Blanchard, it is an unfortunate reality of the internet age that practically everything you share online is subject to a higher level of scrutiny than in the past. Even if you think, like Blanchard did, that no one else can see what you’re sharing, there is still the possibility of your information escaping your grasp.

As Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik said on Fox & Friends back in August, the notion that insurance companies could use information found online to deny or alter coverage is fast becoming a reality. It’s frightenig to image the next step. Could your web browsing habits themselves be justifiable grounds to deny coverage? What about baks and financial institutions? Could they reasonably deny a loan because of how they interpret a random Twitter update?

I’d be interested in hearing some feedback on this woman’s case. Is there anyone who thinks the insurance company was within their rights to search through this woman’s Facebook profile? If so, why?