Could your social media account affect your disability claim? Find out below.
Many of our clients ask whether their disability insurance company will investigate them either in person or online. Taking your child to school, having dinner with family or friends, or engaging in your favorite hobbies can turn an innocent life activity into one that is intensely scrutinized. Of course, just with in-person video surveillance, each snapshot into your life is a one-sided picture and you are not allowed an explanation. A disability insurance company will only see a claimant who is well enough for recreational activities, and so, to them, it follows that they are well enough to work. Of course, you may have more free time after a disabling event or diagnosis to update your social media status on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter; however, posting about your activities, travel, social events or volunteer work can seriously harm your disability claim.
With the rise in utilization of social media in this country, disability insurance companies have increasingly sought out the activities of its claimant’s online looking for reasons to deny them short- and long-term disability benefits. Many of our clients have disabled their own social media in order to maintain their right to privacy.* However, this may not be enough. Insurance carriers have been known to obtain evidence of you from friend’s and family member’s social media accounts, as well. The most important take away here is to be vigilant as to how the memorialization of activities you partake in, by verbal or photographic posts, can be used against you by a disability insurance carrier.
Disability insurance companies will use social media posts against you in order to show that you are capable of working in order to deny or terminate your benefits. Therefore, it is important to be mindful of your activities, in general, and online at all times, whether you are a person who is pre-disabled, just become disabled, have been denied or have been put on disability benefits. The easiest way to counter this kind of investigation as a claimant is to cease all activity online.
If you have any questions about your short- or long-term disability claim and how your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter accounts may affect the outcome of that claim, please give our office a call and we would be glad to answer any questions you may have.
We handle these and other issues as a matter of routine at Herbert M. Hill, P.A. If you have any questions about this issue or any other issue arising in your Short Term Disability or Long Term Disability claim, please give us a call at 407-839-0005 or 844-454-59995, If you would like, after discussing your case, we can set a conference. In most circumstances, that conference would be free of charge but in no circumstance would you be under any obligation to hire me nor would you feel any pressure from me to do so.
Herbert M. Hill, P.A. is a law firm located in Orlando, Florida with a practice extending throughout the state of Florida. While the vast majority of cases handled are for disability insurance benefits, areas of practice include employee benefit claims of all sorts. The firm handles any claims arising under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (known and referred to as “ERISA”) for disability benefits, medical benefits, retirement benefits of any sort, including pension, 401k, termination agreements or the like as well as claims arising under private disability policies.
* Herbert M. Hill, P.A. would like to make it clear that we strongly discourage removing posts from your social media once you believe you have a claim for benefits, as this would be construed as destruction of evidence.
