[hofrogs]

It would be insane if you could recover an account only having access to a phone number, since phone numbers can be redistributed to other people if you stop paying for your phone plan and then someone who gets your number will also inherit all your contacts and chats

[jowea]

Your contacts could still end up messaging the new owner of the number inadvertently if you don't warn them before losing the number or out of band through. It seems WhatsApp doesn't has no warning if such a owner change happened. I believe the new owner would inherit your group memberships too, but not the group chat history.