During a personal injury claim in Dallas, the insurance company responsible for assessing your eligibility for benefits will not want to maximize your payout. Diminishing your injury claim is the insurance company’s main mission. One thing an insurance company may use to investigate your claim is your social media accounts. Be careful what you post, as it could be used as evidence against you.
Your social media profiles are not off-limits during a personal injury claim. Even if you have your account set to private, everything you post is accessible to an investigator. This includes private messages and posts you have deleted. If an insurance company finds evidence on your social media accounts that is relevant to your case, it can submit it to the courts. Social media accounts are a form of electronic records that are considered written documents under Texas law. This makes anything you post on social media admissible as evidence in court.
Posting things on social media after an accident may seem harmless. After all, it is not on official record and it is used for personal reasons. Since an insurance company can use social media content as evidence against you, however, it is important to recognize the power of what you post. Many accident victims make the mistake of posting things on social media that diminish the values of their injury claims.
Insurance companies and defense lawyers will almost always check a claimant’s social media accounts for information or evidence. They will look at sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat for things to use against a client to diminish his or her payout. The best way to protect yourself during an injury claim is not to post anything on social media at all.
Although it may be difficult to stay off of social media while a personal injury claim is pending, this could be critical for your case. Posting or doing the wrong thing on a social media account could hurt your injury claim.
When in doubt, stay off of social media completely until your case concludes. This is the most effective way to protect your rights. For more assistance protecting yourself during a personal injury claim, hire an attorney to represent you.