What You Need to Know about Fraud Claims after an Accident

When you're injured in an accident, you may have to fight to get the compensation you need. You may even end up fighting against accusations by the insurance carrier or other parties in the accident.

What should you do if you suspect that a party is fraudulently claiming injuries? How can you avoid being accused of fraud when claiming your own injuries? And how can you defend yourself if the insurance carrier claims any fraud?

Here's what every accident victim needs to know. 

How Can You Avoid Fraud Claims?

One of the most important moves any accident victim can make is to accurately document their own injuries. This starts from the beginning through things like photos and video taken at the accident scene and afterward.

Many people also keep a journal of their injuries, treatments, appointments, and medical providers. A journal is also a good place to write down your own recollection of the accident and your feelings in the aftermath. 

Also, avoid any temptation to overstate your injuries — often known as soft fraud. If you're in pain and suffering trauma, it can be easy to feel or present things as worse than they may objectively be. But overstatement leads to the responsible party questioning all your injuries and mental health concerns. Accusations that you are blowing things out of proportion harm you during negotiations and weaken you in court. 

Be factual and honest about your injuries. Follow the orders and treatment plans of medical providers. Use reputable medical providers. Work with your injury attorney to figure out the best way to present what's happened to you while neither minimizing nor overstating it. 

What Should You Do About Fraud by Others?

Unfortunately, not everyone is upstanding and truthful. This means that you may encounter a party involved in the accident who claims injuries that don't exist. How should you react? First, be sure not to let this get to you emotionally and result in any rash actions. It can be very frustrating and even make you angry to see someone trying to get more money by faking injuries. But emotional reactions can make things even worse. 

How you respond to potential fraud begins by determining who the person is going after for more money. If your accident is covered by your or another party's insurance, the carrier is the one primarily on the hook for damages. Therefore, it's their responsibility to try to find out the truth. Your attorney may advise you to largely stay out of it. 

The situation is more complex if the fraudulent party sues you directly. If you don't carry an insurance policy that covers the incident and they accuse you of being at fault, you may have to deal with the fraud yourself. In this case, the wise course is to rely on a qualified personal injury attorney familiar with the ins and outs of injury law. Use them as a go-between to avoid making any rash statements. 

How Can You Prove Your Allegations of Fraud?

So, if the other party does try to get money for fake injuries, how might they be thwarted?

Your attorneys or the insurance carrier's legal team can often root out proof. However, either you or they may need to engage a private investigator to dig into the claims. Evidence of fraud may come from observation in public, social media postings by the individual or their followers, work activity, and even eyewitnesses. Investigating many claims, though, should be left to professionals to avoid accidental legal trouble. 

Depending on how uncooperative the fraudster is, you may need to take the matter to a judge. The court can order independent medical examinations, for instance, to have an outside medical provider or mental health professional assess the true state of injuries. To get this order, though, you may have to get further into the process of a lawsuit so that discovery is ordered — or even into a full trial to learn the truth. 

Where Should You Start?

Unfortunately for accident victims, this difficult time when you should be solely focused on your own recovery is also a time when you must take potential fraud into account. First and foremost, you should get help taking the right steps to avoid being accused of any fraud. Then, if you believe others to be faking injuries, you must act calmly and proactively to defend yourself. 

The best place to begin in both cases is by consulting with a qualified personal injury lawyer in your state. Jeeves Law Group, P.A. can help residents and accident victims throughout Florida. We'll help you learn how to protect the best evidence of your injuries and build a strong case. But we also work to spot and fight against indications of fraud by others. Call today to make an appointment.