Legal Question in Criminal Law in Tennessee

Can my auto Insurance adjuster ask for my cell phone records and listen to my passed conversations ,My car was stolen and burnt and I think that they think I had someone to do that to my car


Asked on 12/03/09, 11:15 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

You are required to cooperate with your insurance carrier in the investigation and prosecution of anyone who may have caused a loss that the insurance company must pay. You will find that buried in the fine print of your car insurance contract.

If you refuse to "reasonably" cooperate, they can refuse to pay the claim.

As a practical matter, they can't "listen in" on past telephone conversations because the actual audio isn't recorded. They can -- for a very short period of time (I've been told 30 days or so) -- recover past text messages, and for a longer period of time (perhaps as much as six months) recover your "call detail" record, the billing record of the numbers called and received, the time and the length of the call.

Warning: If the insurance carrier has a reasonable basis to believe that you have filed a false claim, they can also notify law enforcement in your jurisdiction. In an extreme case, the next knock on the door could be a detective with a search warrant to seize your cell phone. I've had it happen in drug cases, whereupon the entire contents of the phone: numbers, text messages sent and received, photographs, etc. were extracted and printed out for use as evidence against my defendant. Sometimes clients are their own worst enemies in preserving evidence of prior bad acts ... ask Tiger Woods about text messages being saved on the receivers telephone.

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Answered on 12/12/09, 7:56 am


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