According to the latest statistics, there are 1.1 billion users on Facebook worldwide. Twitter, Linkedin and other social media and venues continue to experience growing market penetration as well. You are likely already aware of the everyday risks of social media (spam, hacking, etc.) but if you’ve been injured, there’s another risk: insurance company snooping.

The insurance companies are not blind to the growing amount of personal information that people share online. We suppose it was inevitable that they would eventually view this as yet another way to minimize claims. Accordingly we have encountered in our representation of clients insurance companies trolling through whatever social media footprint is publicly accessible to minimize client’s claims. In one example, the insurance company started copying all of our client’s social media postings in an effort to catch her in a lie about her medical treatment. They failed, and in the process showed how callous they were, but our client was quite unnerved when she realized that one of the biggest insurance companies in the country was reading her posts online.

So let this just be yet another warning to be aware of your social media footprint. Make sure you have your privacy settings configured appropriately and at the end of the day know that if you post it online, someone somewhere that was not your intended audience might be reading it.