How Social Media Can Affect Your Car Crash Claim - St. Louis Car Accident Lawyers
By Chris Hoffmann
Jul. 31, 2019 4:35p
If you think social media is everywhere, you’re absolutely right. It’s not just in your personal life. Social media can often be used as evidence in various legal proceedings, particularly in personal injury cases or car accident claims.
Though not exactly an accurate source of information on a person, social media can help paint a better picture of a person and their behavior. That can be used in these cases both by the person filing the claim to win and by the insurance company to try and lower the settlement or even dismiss the claim.
If you’re worried about your social media accounts may hurt your claim, this feeling is not unjustified.
What Should You Do?
Your St. Louis car accident lawyer will advise you to be more careful what you post on social media around your car accident claim. In fact, some may even suggest you take a break from posting on them to avoid giving the insurance companies any ammunition.
However, while it may be easy to control what you post after you filed the claim, the issue here is everything you’ve said before that. Typically, you won’t file a compensation claim right after the car accident. So, if you’re generally very active on these platforms, you may have shared some things about your car accident and injuries.
If you’re worried these posts may make be taken out of context, a natural instinct would be to delete or modify them. However, this may not be the best idea. Modifying these posts in any way could raise more flags to the insurance company, as your behavior to try and change these posts can look suspicious.
Moreover, the insurance company may also question other evidence you present, particularly other social media posts for their validity. If you have a record of deleting or modifying posts post you don’t want people to see, what’s to stop you from doing the same for the post you want to present as evidence?
Speak With an Experienced Car Accident Attorney
Don’t delete or edit any of your posts before speaking with an experienced St. Louis car crash lawyer at length about your case. Show them the posts you’re mostly worried about, and see what they recommend doing with them.
They may advise you to change your privacy settings on the posts. By making your profile as private as you can, you can prevent the insurance company from accessing these posts. They can request to view them, but that’s a much more difficult process than a simple scroll on your profile.
Additionally, your lawyer may also recommend you do not accept any new friends or followers until the settlement is established. It’s possible for the insurance company to try to gain access to these posts a different way.
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