A common mistake is hiding the old MRI because it feels like handing the insurance company a weapon. In nearby Virginia, the fight over pre-existing injuries can get framed a little differently, but West Virginia is clear on the core point: if a crash aggravated an existing condition, that aggravation is still part of your injury claim.

So if you were a rideshare passenger in Martinsburg over a Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, or Thanksgiving traffic surge and the insurer finds an old back scan, the claim is not automatically dead. Their usual move is to say, "This was already there." Your job is to show what changed.

The correct approach is to disclose the prior condition early, then pin down the difference between your baseline before the wreck and your symptoms after it. If your back was manageable before and now you have new leg numbness, missed work, or a doctor recommends an epidural injection after the crash, that difference matters.

For a passenger, coverage may come from more than one place. If your Uber or Lyft trip was active, there is typically up to $1 million in liability coverage available through the rideshare policy. If another driver caused the crash on I-81, WV 9, or Route 45, that driver's insurer may be primary, with the rideshare policy also becoming important depending on fault and coverage disputes.

Keep these points straight:

• Get the crash report from the investigating agency, often West Virginia State Police, Martinsburg Police Department, or the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office.
• Tell your doctors about the old condition and the new symptoms.
• Do not let the insurer summarize your MRI for you.
• West Virginia's general deadline to sue for injury is 2 years under W. Va. Code § 55-2-12.

Old records can shrink a claim if they show the same symptoms, same limits, same treatment. They do not erase a claim just because your spine was not factory-new before somebody hit the car.