What the insurance company does not want you to know is this: some trucking records can legally vanish in just 6 months if nobody forces the company to keep them.

That is not paranoia. That is how the system is built.

In a Bloomington truck crash, the carrier may have ELD data, hours-of-service logs, dispatch messages, onboard computer data, dash cam video, maintenance records, and driver qualification files. Under FMCSA rules, some of that gets kept for limited periods. Hours-of-service records and supporting documents are often kept only 6 months. If nobody sends a preservation demand fast, the company later shrugs and says the records are "no longer available."

That is why families feel like something dirty is happening. A lot of times, it is.

The "black box" is usually the truck's ECM or EDR, and it can show speed, braking, throttle, and sudden deceleration. It is not always automatically saved forever. The trucking company controls the truck, the data, and the story unless someone locks that evidence down early.

In Indiana, the general deadline to file an injury lawsuit is usually 2 years from the crash under Indiana Code 34-11-2-4. But waiting anywhere near that long is how key trucking proof disappears.

A few ugly truths matter here:

• Carrier, broker, and driver are not the same thing. The motor carrier usually operates the truck. A broker may have arranged the load but may deny responsibility.
• Many interstate trucks carry a minimum of $750,000 in liability coverage, but some policies are much larger.
• If the wreck happened on I-69, State Road 37, or in Monroe County school traffic during back-to-school season, timing, distraction, and routing records matter.
• In Indiana fog, especially around the White River valley, visibility and stopping-distance data can make or break the case.

If the truck hit your husband, assume the company started protecting itself on day one. Families who do not move fast get told the evidence is gone, the driver was "independent," and the policy limits are lower than expected. That script is common because it works.