Every firm tells you not to give a recorded statement. That advice arrives too late for most people, because the call usually comes in the first few days, sounds routine, and is framed as something needed to move the claim along.
So start with the more useful question. You already gave one. What now.
The statute almost nobody cites
Utah Code § 78B-5-813 governs statements taken from an injured person by an adverse party. A statement is inadmissible if it was taken:
- within 15 days of the occurrence, or
- while the injured person was confined to a hospital or sanitarium,
unless a verbatim copy was left with that person at the time it was taken, and they did not disavow it in writing within the same 15-day window.
Read the condition carefully, because it is doing the work. The exception requires the adjuster to hand you a verbatim copy at the time. Not to offer to email a transcript later. Not to tell you it is on file.
If nobody gave you a copy on the spot, you have a real argument that the statement cannot be used.
Why it exists
The provision sits beside § 78B-5-812, which makes a release signed within the same 15-day window voidable. Both address the same problem from different angles: an injured person in the first two weeks is medicated, frightened about money, and does not yet know what their treatment will cost or how long recovery will take.
Anything they say or sign in that period is not a reliable measure of the claim. The legislature decided the law should say so rather than leave it to argument.
What the adjuster is actually building
The call is usually friendly and the questions sound administrative. They are not. A recorded statement in week one reliably produces three things an insurer can use later.
A minimised injury. Asked how you are feeling four days after a crash, people say "sore" or "okay." Soft tissue injuries commonly present worse at two to six weeks. "I'm fine, just a little sore" is then read back against a course of treatment that followed.
An admission on fault. Open questions about speed, following distance and what you were doing invite guesses. Guesses under recording become positions.
A fixed timeline. Anything you say about when symptoms started gets used to argue that later treatment was unrelated.
None of this requires bad faith on the adjuster's part. It is what the document is for.
If you already gave one
Do three things.
Find out whether you were given a verbatim copy at the time. If not, § 78B-5-813 is available to you.
Put any disagreement in writing, quickly. The statute contemplates the injured person disavowing the statement in writing within the 15-day window. If what you said was incomplete, or you have since learned more about your injuries, say so in writing and keep proof of when you sent it.
Do not give a second one to correct the first. That produces two statements to compare rather than one to exclude.
If they have not called yet
You are required to cooperate with your own insurer under your policy. That is a different relationship from the at-fault driver's carrier, which owes you nothing but the claim.
You can decline a recorded statement with the adverse carrier. You can provide the factual basics — date, location, vehicles, police case number — in writing instead. A written exchange is slower and far more accurate than an unprepared phone call, and it leaves no tone for anyone to characterise later.
Note also that the police case number and the insurance claim number are two different identifiers. Adjusters ask for both and people routinely give one for the other.
The related fifteen-day rule
If a release was put in front of you as well, § 78B-5-812 makes it voidable when it was signed within 15 days of the occurrence or before your initial discharge from hospital. Written notice, return the money, and the deadline runs from the later of those two events.
Statement and release are governed by the same clock, and both of them run out quietly.
The outer deadlines
- Personal injury — four years. Utah Code § 78B-2-307.
- Wrongful death — two years. § 78B-2-304.
- Vehicle property damage — three years. § 78B-2-305, covering diminished value, total loss and repair.
The fifteen-day rules above are not statutes of limitation. They are much shorter, they are easy to miss, and once they pass the easy path is gone even though the claim itself remains alive.