Your husband may feel isolated and bored if his maritime work injuries force him to spend much of the day at home recuperating. This “downtime” can cause a person to feel particularly drawn to social media as a means of interacting with the “outside” world.
Unfortunately, the use of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare can be detrimental to your husband’s case. There are steps you can take to persuade your husband to stay off of social media and funnel his attention to activities that won’t inadvertently damage his claim.
Reasons to Avoid Social Media During the Injury Claims Process
It helps to have an understanding of why social media and networking can derail a claim before you ask your husband to abstain.
Four reasons to consider avoiding social media:
- The collection of evidence to be used against your husband – Insurance companies – and even your husband’s employer – can use social media profiles to collect information about your husband and his injuries. They can use status updates, photos, videos and other activity to compile evidence that may undermine the seriousness of your husband’s injuries and health condition.
- Privacy doesn’t really exist on social media – Your husband’s profiles may be accessible to a tech-savvy insurance employee – even if he sets them to private.
- Other people’s activities can harm your husband’s claim – Your husband’s claim may be placed in jeopardy for a seemingly harmless act, such as his being tagged in an old photo from a ski trip or a friend “checking him in” to a local restaurant. Such activity may make it appear your husband is not being honest about his current health and injury status.
- It is too difficult to control – Your husband’s claim can be considered a known quantity if you allow your attorney to brief him on his public persona in court and look over all written matter he remits to his employer and insurance company. Any extraneous personal information uncontrolled by your lawyer can easily be misinterpreted by insurance adjusters. Even well-meaning friends and family can mistakenly disseminate information that could harm your claim. Since you can’t control everyone else, control your public face by shutting off social media during the course of your case.
Err on the side of caution and recommend your husband suspend or delete all social media profiles and applications until the final settlement of his case.
Strategies to Keep Your Husband Away from Social Media
Not certain how to keep your husband away from Facebook and Twitter while his claim progresses?
Here are strategies to help him kick the habit:
- reiterate the positives of avoiding social media, such as protecting one’s right to compensation;
- offer to abstain from social media in a show of support;
- download interesting podcasts or audio books to provide him with a new pastime; and
- encourage him to learn a new skill or hobby, such as model-ship building, HTML coding, crossword puzzles or chess.
Interested in learning other steps you can take to protect your husband’s claim? Order our free book, Understanding Your Offshore Injury: Inside Tips from a Jones Act Attorney that Could Protect You & Your Family. This 50-plus-page book includes user-friendly information to help you and your husband understand the claims process and what you can do to strengthen your right to compensation.
Call us at 866-666-5129 to set up a consultation with an attorney at The Young Firm.
