Many people enjoy staying in touch with social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other sites. However, if you have been in a car accident and have sustained personal injuries, you may want to reevaluate how you update your sites. Investors and insurance carriers look at social networking sites when evaluating claims. The wrong message on your sites may affect your claim and your chance at a fair settlement.
You may have already read it in the news: people being accused of insurance fraud or having benefits cancelled due to Facebook or other social sites. Even if you think you are immune because you would never try to defraud an insurance provider, your social networking activities may affect your ability to make a claim.
After a car accident in which you have sustained a brain injury, broken bone, burn injury, spinal cord injury, or other serious ailment, you will need to make a claim with an insurance provider in order to be compensated for your medical and related costs. It is also a good idea to hire a good Florida personal injury attorney, who can protect your interests and your rights in a claim.
The insurance provider will evaluate your claim and your claims of injury. Today, many insurance providers use investigators to evaluate claims in order to reduce the instances of fraud. As well, in jury trials, attorneys use investigators to evaluate plaintiff’s cases. In both cases, investigators are increasingly turning to social networking sites to gather information.
Even seemingly innocent pictures and posts can get you into trouble. If you have sustained a spinal cord injury and post on your blog or Twitter page that you have gone shopping, for example, investigators may question this and note that you seem to be performing every day activities perfectly well. If you post pictures of yourself and friends having fun and smiling, this can also be used by investigators as evidence that your injuries are not so severe. This can affect your ability to get a fair settlement.
If you have a blog or if you take part in any social networking sites, you will want to speak with your Florida personal injury attorney about your online activities. Your attorney can advise you about which things you can or cannot post about. Your attorney may also recommend that you briefly stop online social networking in order to increase the chances that you will get the help you are entitled to under the law.