Claims work · evidence for insurers, London
Nobody is testing your honesty here. The adjuster wants one thing settled — whether this file is genuinely the file it purports to be — and three things settle it: an export the recorder produced itself, hash values lifted off that export, and a written note of the way it left the disk. Claims are civil business. The Forensic Science Regulator's Code is a statutory instrument for criminal proceedings in this jurisdiction, so none of this sits under it and none of it wants accreditation. We have none to offer in any case, and every report leads with that. Whatever refused to read is written down as well. From £800 + VAT, with the figure agreed in writing first.
Talk it over with an engineer, in confidence
0203 0868633
| Kind of claim | What we receive here | What it can settle |
|---|---|---|
| A claim after an intrusion | The recorder itself, or the disk from a unit that has stopped | The hours around the event, exported in the unit's own format |
| A machine hurt by water, soot or heat | The disk out of that machine | Invoices, schedules and photographs the machine has kept |
| Motor claims | The dashcam's card itself, rather than a clip forwarded on | The camera's own full data file — GPS, speed, sensor channels, all of them discarded by a forwarded MP4 — and a note saying what that forwarded version omitted |
| A business showing what it held | The disk holding the records | A hashed list of whatever still reads, plus a plain note of what the disk is unable to tell you |
| An argument over liability | A recorder both sides believe backs their account | One set of exports, given to both parties alike, with a method either can repeat |
Forensic instructions start at £800 + VAT, and where a particular job lands within that depends on scope — which is what the first conversation is for: the dates and events in dispute, the machines and accounts in play, and what has to be shown. That conversation is not charged for, and no work that costs you anything begins before the written figure reaches you.
Leave the power connected and the recorder keeps writing, newest over oldest. That cycle outruns a claim by a wide margin. How much is left is not in any manual — capacity, the number of channels, resolution and the way somebody configured the unit all pull on it. Power off first; ring second.
An examination is lawful because somebody with the right to permit it has permitted it; absent that, the Computer Misuse Act 1990 bites at section 1. Every job therefore records who gave authority and on what footing. Landlord, employer and commercial vehicle operator are three separate positions.
Two files go back to you: the native export with whatever player opens it, and a copy that plays anywhere. The step between them is described in writing, not left for a viewer to account for. MD5 and SHA-256 go against each. And the report gives the gap between the recorder's clock and real time.
Hand the other side a finding they have no way of testing and the argument is theirs. So the bundle carries the lot: every exhibit numbered, every hash, handovers dated and countersigned, the image behind each conclusion, and the notes written up at the bench while the work went on. Repeat the steps and the result does not move.
Worth knowing before you instruct anybody: October 2025 brought version 2 of the Regulator's statutory Code. Two of its named activities touch this work — data captured from digital storage, and CCTV recovery — with ISO/IEC 17025 attached to each. The Code, though, governs work done towards a criminal prosecution in England and Wales, and nothing besides. A claim on a policy is outside it. We hold no such accreditation in any event, and page one of every report we issue says as much.
A tenant and an insurer disagreed about which night water had begun coming through, and the corridor camera was the only record of it anywhere. That clock had never been put forward for British Summer Time, so it ran an hour behind. We measured the offset, worked from the export the recorder itself produced, and set both times out in the report. The claim settled on it.
No. There is a single setting where the Regulator's Code asks for ISO/IEC 17025, and that is a criminal prosecution in England and Wales. Yours is a civil claim, so the ask never arrives. We hold nothing of that sort anyway — not for one class of work and not for another — and the opening page of each report puts it plainly. If the claim turns criminal later, we tell you so in writing.
Think about the route it has come: off a monitor, through a phone lens, then out of a re-encode. Neither the timing nor the detail the recorder originally wrote comes through that. An insurer is after the file the unit made for itself, with a hash on it.
Whatever still reads gets listed, and whatever the disk itself records about the rest gets reported. Where material has been written over, the report says written over. Guessing is not part of it.
Whoever holds the right to give it. Access to a machine without authority engages the 1990 Computer Misuse Act at its first section, so the footing for every job goes on file. A landlord's position is not an employer's; neither is the position of a vehicle operator, or of the driver at the wheel.
Whatever holds the evidence, take it off power before anything else — a recorder that is still running overwrites its own oldest material, hour by hour. Send it to us after that. Looking costs nothing; recorder work is £400 + VAT and forensic instructions start at £800 + VAT, both settled in writing beforehand. What sits on that disk stays here.