Insurance claims · evidence work, Reading
Your honesty is not what an adjuster is testing. The question is whether that file really is the thing it claims to be, and what settles it is the export the recorder made, the hash values taken from it, and a written account of the route it took off the disk. Claims are civil work. What the Regulator's statutory Code governs is criminal proceedings, England and Wales, so it does not govern this, and nothing here calls for accreditation. We hold none in any event, and the report opens by saying so. Whatever would not read is written down too. From £800 + VAT, agreed in writing before anything starts.
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| The kind of claim | What reaches our bench | What it can prove |
|---|---|---|
| A break-in, or a theft | The recorder, or the disk pulled from one that has stopped | The period around the incident, exported in the form the box wrote |
| A unit lost to water, smoke or heat | The drive out of the damaged machine | Invoices, schedules and photographs the machine still holds |
| A vehicle claim | The dashcam's own card, not a clip somebody forwarded | The camera's full data file — GPS, speed and sensor channels, all of which a forwarded MP4 drops — with a note of everything the forwarded version had lost |
| A company documenting its loss | The drive that held those records | A hashed list of everything still readable, plus a plain account of what can no longer be told from the disk at all |
| A liability dispute | A recorder both parties think backs their own account | One set of exports, issued identically to both, with a method either of them can run again |
The scoping call costs nothing, and nothing chargeable starts until you have a price in writing. What the call fixes is the ground it covers: the events, the machines and accounts in play, and precisely what the evidence must establish. Forensic instructions start at £800 + VAT, and the scope decides where yours lands.
Leave it powered and the recorder keeps writing, the oldest material going to make room for the newest. Claims move far more slowly than that loop. How long is left is not something a manual can tell you: it turns on capacity, on channel count, on resolution, and on the way the box was set up. Take the power off first. Then ring.
Examining a machine without authority is an offence — Computer Misuse Act 1990, section 1 — so each job records who authorised it, and on what basis. A landlord stands in one position, an employer in another, and the owner of a van in a third.
Two files come back. The first is the native export, with whatever player will open it; the second plays anywhere. What was done to get from one to the other is written down instead of being hidden in a viewer. Both carry MD5 and SHA-256, and the report gives the offset between the box's clock and real time.
Hand the other side a finding they cannot test and you have handed them an argument. So it all goes in the bundle: exhibit numbers, the image each conclusion came off, dated handovers, the hashes, and the working notes typed as the job ran. The examiner on the other side can run the whole thing again and reach the same answer.
Worth knowing before you instruct anybody: since 2 October 2025, version 2 of the Regulator's statutory Code has been in force. It names ISO/IEC 17025 for two things that matter here — pulling data off digital storage, and recovering CCTV — but only where the work is being done for a criminal prosecution, England and Wales. A claim on a policy is not that. No accreditation of any kind is held here, and it is the first thing each of our reports says.
A haulier and a food producer disagreed about the day a pallet had been damaged, and the only account of it sat on the yard gate recorder. That clock had never been put right for British Summer Time. The offset was measured, the recorder's own export taken, and both times went into the report. It settled after exchange.
No. ISO/IEC 17025 is what the Regulator's Code demands where the work is done for a criminal prosecution, England and Wales. A claim on a policy is civil, so the requirement never reaches it. Accreditation is not held here whatever the matter, and the opening page of each report says as much. Should a claim later turn criminal, you get that from us in writing.
It has been round a monitor, into a phone lens and out through a re-encode. What the recorder actually wrote, timing included, does not come out the far end of that. Insurers want what the box produced, with a hash on it.
We can list whatever still reads, and report what the disk records about the rest. Overwritten material is reported as overwritten. Guesswork is not on the menu.
Somebody with the right to give it. Access without authority is an offence — Computer Misuse Act 1990, section 1 — so each job carries the basis for it on file. A landlord stands in one position, an employer in another, the owner of a van in a third, and a driver in a fourth.
The insurer will ask what happened to the disk between the loss and the report, and the right answer is nothing. Leave it unpowered and get it to us. The first look is free, the fee is agreed in writing, and what we find goes to the party who instructed us.