Blog2 min read

How to save dashcam footage for insurance or the police

After a crash or near miss, the camera will overwrite your footage within hours. Here is how to secure the right clips, keep the originals intact, and share them in a form insurers accept.

Dashcam footage can settle a claim in your favour in minutes. But only if it still exists. A dashcam loops: when the card is full, the oldest footage is overwritten. Here is what to do, in order.

Right after the incident

  1. Press the event or lock button on the camera, if it has one. Most cameras also lock the clip automatically on a hard bump, but not always.
  2. Stop recording soon if you can safely do so: switch the camera off or take the card out once you are parked and it is safe. Every minute of driving overwrites old footage.
  3. Note the time. It helps you find the clip later and spot a wrong camera clock.

This is general advice, not legal advice. Follow what the police, your insurer and the law where you live tell you.

At home: secure the originals

  1. Put the card in your computer.
  2. Find the moment. In Tripframe, open the card, choose the day and you will see every clip by time; event clips are labelled.
  3. Copy the original files, unchanged, to your computer and a second place (a USB stick or cloud storage you control). Copy the clip of the incident, plus the clip before and after it, for every camera: front and rear.
  4. Do not edit, trim or convert the originals. Make copies for that.

Keeping the original file with its original name shows when it was recorded and that it has not been altered.

Make it easy to understand

Insurers and police see a lot of footage. Help them:

  • A still of the key frame. In Tripframe, pause, step to the frame with , and ., and press S. The PNG is named after the exact time of that frame.
  • One video with both cameras. Press R to record the current view (front and rear side by side, plus the GPS map if available) into a single new file. Send this alongside the originals, not instead of them.
  • A short written description with the date, time, place and what to look at.

Sharing the footage

Upload it through your insurer's or the police's own portal when they have one. Large files are often too big for email; a shared link from your own cloud storage works too.

Posting online

Think twice before posting an incident online. In many countries, faces and number plates are personal data, and posting them can be against the law or hurt your claim. Ask your insurer first.

Before the next time