Being involved in a collision or your car being stolen or broken into is stressful enough, but that’s not the end of your hassles. You also need to submit an insurance claim and potentially face higher premiums in the near future, which is not ideal considering the relatively recent record rise in car insurance premiums.
This is where dash cam footage can prove invaluable, streamlining this process by providing clear evidence of incidents, helping to expedite claim approvals, reducing disputes, and increasing your chances of a fairer settlement.
The Importance of Dash Cams
The 45,800 fraudulent motor insurance claims worth £501 million detected by insurance providers in 2023 represented 54% of all claims made last year and an 8% increase on 2022’s figures. Some of these claims were crashes-for-cash, while others were exaggerated claims or had absolutely no basis in reality.
Crash-for-cash incidents aren’t the only thing UK drivers need to worry about, as there also are hundreds of thousands of collisions every year. More than 129,000 vehicles were stolen, more than 190,000 vehicles were broken into, and almost 220,000 people reported theft from their vehicles between April 2023 and March 2024.
Depending on how many dashboard cameras you have and where they’re installed in your vehicle, these cameras capture footage of the road in front of, around, and inside the vehicle, enabling insurance claim assessors and police to establish who was at fault.
Providing Clear Evidence of Incidents
Crystal Ball’s 4G dash cams record high-quality video footage continuously, making them powerful tools for providing clear evidence of incidents. If you’re involved in a collision, the accident footage from your dash cam offers an objective, clear account, much like an unbiased witness would. This account of the events before, during, and after the collision eliminates he-said-she-said situations and helps establish the facts around the incident, enabling insurance providers to determine liability.
Dash cam footage is also helpful in legal disputes. You can submit footage as evidence to support your case in court, whether you’re seeking redress or defending yourself against alleged traffic violations.
Expediting Insurance Claim Approvals
As many drivers in the UK have discovered to their dismay and frustration, car insurance claims can take anything from a week, a month, or a year to be processed and approved. This is often due to the lengthy assessments and investigations that must be made to determine who was at fault.
Dash cam footage can help speed up this process by providing clear, unbiased evidence, which can reduce or eliminate the need for drawn-out investigations. You can share accident footage with your insurance provider using digital platforms, which means less paperwork and smaller administrative expenses for you and your insurer. Expedited claim assessments and approvals often mean that you can receive an insurance payout soon after the incident occurred.
Reducing Car Insurance Claim Disputes
Given the high number of fraudulent car insurance claims providers receive every year, it’s easy to see why claim assessors are often sceptical and dispute claims. Whether you are a victim of a crash-for-cash incident or of a careless driver simply not paying attention, accident footage from your Crystal Ball dash cam can help combat fraudulent claims and bring claim disputes to a swift end.
Objective video evidence can prove that your insurance claim is authentic, protecting you and your insurance provider from fraud. If someone deliberately crashes into you with the intention of making a false claim, your dash cam footage can provide evidence that the incident was deliberate, such as by showing the other driver swerved intentionally or braked suddenly and unnecessarily.
Increasing Your Chances of a Fair Settlement
Like all businesses, insurance providers strive to keep their expenses and payouts as low as possible. As a result, some clients feel that they do not receive fair settlements for their claims.
Dash cam footage provides valuable evidence that not only helps establish who was at fault, speeds up claim processes, and reduces disputes, but it can also increase your chances of receiving a fair settlement. Presented with an unbiased, objective view of the events leading up to, during, and immediately after a collision, insurance providers struggle to find reasons to pay out less than what you deserve.
Dash Cams Can Reduce Insurance Premiums
Insurance providers in the UK know that dash cams can act as a deterrent to theft from vehicles, theft of vehicles, and fraudulent insurance claims. Dash cams can also reduce how frequently insurers receive claims.
As a result, many insurance providers offer incentives such as discounts to clients who install dash cams in their vehicles.
Tips for Using Dash Cams for Insurance Claims
Make the most of your dash cam in insurance claims by following these tips:
Choose the right dash cam for your needs: Ensure you choose a dash cam that offers high-definition video quality, night or low-light vision, a wide-angle lens, and additional features such as G-sensors and GPS, such as Crystal Ball’s.
Ensure your dash cam is installed properly: Mount your dash cam securely on your vehicle’s dashboard or windscreen, making sure that it has an unobstructed view of the road, a wide field of vision, and doesn’t obstruct your view of the road and surrounding environment.
Maintain your dash cam: Clean your dash cam’s lens regularly and update the firmware when necessary.
Save and backup important footage: Download important footage from your dash cam software dashboard or app and save it on your computer or mobile device. Create backups of this dash cam footage on external devices or in the cloud.
Submit footage to your insurance provider with your claim: Use your insurance provider’s recommended digital platform to share relevant accident footage with them when you submit your claim.
Take Advantage of High-Quality Dash Cams
Footage from a dash cam can mean the difference between insurance claims that take forever to process, are disputed, and result in unfair payouts, and claims that are processed swiftly, accurately, and fairly. However, if you want to take full advantage of these advanced technologies, you should choose a dashboard camera that won’t let you down.
Choose Crystal Ball’s innovative 4G fleet dash cam. Boasting a range of powerful features, our dash cam can make a real difference when you need to submit car insurance claims.