EMERGENCY?: Court Holds Wrong Number Robocalls Regarding Dental Insurance Were “Emergency” Calls And It Gets You Thinking

What is an “emergency”?

Whatever the word may mean to you, a court in New York just held it includes robocalls sent by an insurance benefits provider to advise a consumer a dental insurance claim had been denied. And that means those robocalls are legal–even if sent to a wrong number.

The case is Davis v. Healthplex, 2026 WL 1002120 (N.D. N.Y. April 14, 2026) and it builds on earlier case law to the effect that insurance-coverage related phone calls are indeed “emergencies” under the TCPA:

As alleged, the calls about which plaintiff complains in his pleading fall squarely within the scope of the TCPA’s emergency
purposes exception. The messages at issue concern the approval or denial of a dental services request—information that bears
directly on a patient’s ability to obtain medical treatment. As other courts have recognized, communications regarding health
insurance coverage implicate significant health and safety concerns. See Dennis v. Amerigroup Wash., Inc., 2020 WL 618472,
at *7 (W.D. Wash. Feb. 10, 2020) (finding that “[t]he myriad ramifications of a sudden loss of insurance coverage, such as the
inability to obtain preventative care and the risk of an uncovered health crisis, affect a consumer’s ‘health and safety’ ”); Aguirre
v. Optum Health Plan of Cal., 2025 WL 3190830, at *4 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 24, 2025) (holding that “receiving information about
authorization from a health insurance company emergently relates to an individual’s ability to receive medical care under the
FCC’s promulgated regulation”). These decisions reflect the commonsense proposition that a patient’s ability to access medical
treatment may turn on the availability of coverage or authorization.

Interesting, no?

Perhaps more importantly the court firmly held the exemption applies even to wrong number calls:

The mere fact that a call reached the wrong person does not, by itself, take it outside the emergency purposes exception. Nor does
recognizing the continued applicability of the emergency purposes exception—at least in the absence of notice—improperly
shift the burden of compliance to the call recipient. The relevant inquiry remains focused on the caller’s conduct—specifically,
whether the call was made for an emergency.

That last piece is interesting because the focus is solely on the intent of the caller with respect to an emergency impacting the intended recipient and seems to fly in the face of a broad base of case law suggesting only the subscriber or regular user of the phone is the “called party” for consent purposes.

Davis is a fascinating ruling appearing to mark the borders of what an “emergency” means under the TCPA. It seems a robocall notifying a consumer of an insurance denial of a dental treatment is probably the farthest out into the wilderness a court will go in expanding the exemption— but we will have to wait and see.

For now this is a big win for the defendant and another data point for insurers and TPAs wondering where the lines are– but caution is urged. It certainly would not be a good idea to start hammering consumers with robocalls without consent!

Troutman Amin, LLP’s Puja J. Amin–a former general counsel and in house counsel for a major mortgage company– will be breaking down the top compliance TCPA tips for everyone to avoid trouble at Law Conference of Champions early next month.

Chat soon!