If you’re reading this blog because you’ve recently been in a car accident, do yourself a favor; go onto Facebook, and take your account down. All of it. I’ve seen too many cases damaged by what clients post to their Facebook walls, Twitter feeds, and personal blogs. Social media is a wonderful thing, usually. But when something traumatic happens, it’s all too tempting to dump everything you experience, think, and feel into a status update that your friends read. The danger is that it’s not only your friends who can read these details. Insurance adjusters and insurance defense attorneys are trained to search for you on social media sites and look for anything you’ve said that might hurt your claim.
“But I have privacy settings!” you say. When was the last time you updated them? With Facebook’s constant policy changes, your privacy settings may not be the same as when you last checked. Even if you are set to “Friends only,” the risk of adjusters finding your site is too high. Also, the insurance adjusters may look on your friends’ pages and sites to gain photos and other information on you. Once it is in their hands it is easy for the adjusters to manipulate the situation to make you look dishonest.
