How PCH Mutual and 4WARN Are Protecting Elder Care from Digital Opportunists

Few areas of our lives are as personal as elder care. It’s where families place their trust, relying on caregivers and assisted living facilities to provide safety, dignity, and support for loved ones who can no longer live independently.

What most people don’t see is how fragile this system has become, and how easily it can be exploited through tech-enabled litigation.

The Hidden Threat

Over the past few years, opportunistic players, including law firms, lead generation companies, and digital marketers, have turned to online tactics to drive litigation. They manipulate search results, flood the web with paid ads, and spin up websites that capitalize on events that may occur at care facilities. The goal is not to resolve these incidents responsibly, but to magnify them in ways that generate lawsuits and increase pressure on insurers.

This massive volume of digital targeting does more than raise costs. It overwhelms insurers, drains resources, and makes it harder for legitimate issues, such as slip and falls, neglect, or pressure injuries, to receive the support and resolution they require.

As Julie Bordo, CEO of PCH Mutual, explains, “Our members care for vulnerable adults. It is deeply human work, and that makes it an easy target for people looking to exploit the system.”

From Runners to Algorithms

Bordo has a unique perspective shaped by her career as both an attorney and an insurance executive. She compares today’s digital targeting to an older scheme the industry once fought: “runners.”

Runners would show up at care facilities pretending to help families, only to funnel them toward lawsuits. Now the same strategy happens online. The faces are gone, but the manipulation remains, executed through algorithms, ads, and keywords.

A New Kind of Partnership

When PCH Mutual partnered with 4WARN^®, the company had already seen troubling signs of digital targeting. The collaboration quickly became a turning point. With 4WARN’s digital risk intelligence (DRI), data, and expert analysis, PCH Mutual was able to uncover coordinated activity and reduce its exposure, including a 40 percent decrease in its overall digital risk score in just a few months.

For Bordo, the impact was not just about data. It was about validation, clarity, and the ability to protect her members with confidence. As she puts it, “4WARN didn’t just show us the problem. They brought us real experts, clear action plans, and fast solutions.”

Watch the Full Story

To hear Julie Bordo tell the story in her own words, explore the full testimonial.