What You Need to Know About LTD & Social Media (Part 2)
In our last post, we began discussing the ways that insurers monitor and use claimants’ social media for the purposes of denying applications or cutting off benefits. Here are three more important things to understand about how insurers look at your online activities.
Privacy Settings May Not Matter
It is wise to set your social media accounts to private, but even locking down your account to just trusted friends and family members is not a guarantee that no one else will see your content.
Insurers have been known to pose as friends to gain access to your social media profile. And regardless of whether certain content was posted privately online, if the insurer manages to get their hands on it, they won’t hesitate to use it. In fact, if you wind up taking legal action, the court can compel you to produce copies of content from your private profile. It’s a good idea to talk over the topic of social media with your lawyer.
In the meantime, one setting that you should definitely turn off is the geo-location setting, which automatically assigns a location to each of your actions.
Don’t Delete or Edit
Are you revisiting old posts and wondering if you should edit some of the potentially problematic ones? Or maybe just deleting your account? Those actions may actually have the opposite effect, because this could look as though you are hiding something. Remember: it’s now commonplace for social media postings to be preserved forever with screenshots.
Rather than deleting or changing old posts, it’s better to be careful going forward, and simply be prepared to explain or give context to content that you posted in the past. Again, a lawyer can give you further advice on this decision.
Mum’s the Word for Discussing Your Disability & Claim
Above all, do not discuss your disability, health, treatments, or claim online, regardless of whether your account is private. If you must mention your limitations, be honest about them, while being mindful not to speak in absolutes about what you can and can’t do (for example, “I can’t do X since my accident”).
Navigating social media while you have an insurance claim can be really challenging. Our online lives are part of our “real” lives, and for many of us, social media is a key way for us to stay in touch with the important people in our lives.
If you have applied for or are receiving benefits, the chances are very good that your insurer will look at or even regularly monitor your online activities. It may not be necessary to completely stop using social media, but it’s vital that you understand how insurers can use it against you, and that taking care with what you do online will help protect your claim and benefits.