Social Media’s Impact on Personal Injury Claims

Social media has become a common way to express ourselves, but if you have recently filed a personal injury claim, you may not know that social media has the potential to jeopardize your claim.

Below you’ll learn what to avoid on social media to ensure that your personal injury claim isn’t affected.

Privacy and Social Media

Even if you have your privacy settings set to prevent anyone you don’t know from seeing your social media posts, in reality your posts can often be traced back to you, even after you delete them.

Insurance companies and their investigators often search for social media accounts of people who have been in accidents so they can use them against you. Even a nonchalant comment you make online after your accident has the potential to be used against you. Pictures, videos and activities you participate in after your injury can also be used to show that your injuries are nonexistent or not as severe as you claim they are.

Avoid Posting About Your Injuries

If you’ve been injured in an accident, it can be a stressful time and your first impulse might be to rush to social media for support. Unfortunately, the best policy is to avoid posting anything related to the accident. If anyone contacts you via social media to discuss the accident or your treatments, do not answer.

It’s best to deactivate your social media accounts before you make a personal injury claim, but if you decide not to do this or don’t do it right away, avoid putting anything about your accident or how you’re feeling afterwards online.

Getting Privacy Settings Right

If you haven’t updated your privacy settings in a while, make sure to do so after your accident. Deactivating your account is best, but if you are not willing to do this, adjust your privacy settings so that they offer you as much privacy as possible.

First, make sure only your friends can see your posts. This method will not fully protect you, but it can improve your privacy. To make sure your privacy settings are correct, use the “view as” feature in Facebook so you can see what others see when they look at your posts. Also make sure to pay attention to any updates that become available and change your privacy settings when necessary.

Avoid Sending Messages

Although the messenger features of many social media platforms may seem private, you should never send texts, emails or private messages about your accident, injuries or treatment.

Consider Your Friends’ Post

Even if you don’t post to social media about your accident, injuries or current state of health, it’s very possible that your friends will, which means insurance companies and others will be able to see these posts. This can become extremely problematic if someone posts a picture of you doing an activity that makes your injuries seem less serious than they are.

Other issues can come up when your friends tag you in their posts. These posts will show up on your timeline in Facebook where they can be easily seen, unless your privacy settings are properly set. To prevent this issue from occurring, disable the tagging function so you can’t be tagged in posts or check-ins.

Although these tips can help make sure your personal injury claim isn’t harmed by social media posts, it’s impossible to guarantee that your social media accounts won’t be used against you. The only real way to prevent these problems is to avoid using social media until your case is over.

Now that you know how to protect yourself from problems social media can cause for your personal injury claim, click to download our free personal injury recovery kit, or contact us for a free consultation with a personal injury lawyer.