It’s always a good idea to use stringent privacy settings on your social media profiles to protect your identity, your family, or other sensitive information or data about yourself.
But when it comes to the fallout after a car accident, companies that provide insurance are using social media profiles to collect data, photos, and in some cases, the contact information of friends and connections to rout out falsified claims. An insurance attorney in Houston may be able to help you.
How to Defend Against Prying Insurance on Social Media
Insurance companies reported more than 90,000 suspicious claims to the National Insurance Crime Bureau in 2010, up 23 percent from 2008, so now they’re using social media information to investigate even more closely into claims – even those that are perfectly legitimate.
Protect your insurance claim on social media sites by enhancing all of your privacy settings. Even if something is “Friends Only,” an insurance company may still be able to access it. Twitter feeds, unless private (meaning only your friends can see your tweets), are open to the public.
Both car insurance companies and private investigators hire people who can dig up evidence on Facebook or other social media profiles to use when disputing your claim. While in many cases, these searches yield information that confirms or backs up the allegations of the claimant about the severity of his or her injury, any evidence that can be used to the contrary will be.
And remember, above all else: once something is on the Internet, it’s almost impossible to remove, and that is especially true for social media sites. Just because you delete an image or a status doesn’t mean that the many Web crawlers out there haven’t already indexed that information and tucked it away, often in the recesses of the Internet referred to as the “Deep Web” or “Undernet” – places that are not indexed by search engines and aren’t part of the “Surface Web,” which is what most of us are used to using. For more tips on protecting yourself, speak with a lawyer in Houston.
Contact an Insurance Attorney in Houston
When you have experienced legal representation on your side, you can rest assured that your attorney will fight for all compensation to which you may be entitled, including past, current and future medical expenses after a car accident; pain and suffering; lost earnings or earning potential; or wrongful death benefits. Speak with a lawyer from our Houston office to learn more about how to protect your claim and private information from the prying eyes of companies that provide insurance. Social media sites can lead to trouble if you’re not careful.
While you focus on your recovery and emotional wellbeing, you should have an insurance attorney in Houston at the law offices of The Kahn Law Firm advocating for your rights. Contact us today – 713-999-6549 or toll-free at 1-844-301-KAHN.