If you use social media a lot, you may find it hard to stop sharing after a car crash. It’s a significant event in your life – something that those who follow you may want to know about.
The problem is that sharing the wrong things could hurt your compensation claim, and determining what is OK to share is not straightforward. You may also forget to check before posting.
Insurers often search claimant’s social media
Insurers have been using social media to snoop on people for a long time, and are good at it. What’s more, they are good at spinning perfectly innocent events into something that can lead a court to doubt the validity of your claim and therefore reduce its initial award.
Let’s say you claim for a back injury which your doctor says will leave you unable to do heavy lifting duties for at least a year. Once you win the claim, you spend some of the money taking the family to the beach. You post some photos online showing you playing with your kids in the waves, including one of you lifting your smallest child above your head to escape an oncoming wave.
Perfectly innocent and over in a few seconds, it was something you had to do to avoid the child being swamped by the wave. You didn’t plan to, the adrenaline just kicked in, and you did it. You spent the rest of the day lying on your bed as once the adrenaline wore off the pain kicked in, but no one took a photo of that.
If the insurer comes across this image, or others that picture you being more active than the doctor said you would be, they may take them to court and ask them to reduce the amount of compensation initially awarded.
Consider learning more about how to protect your rights during and after a claim.