In instances of road rage, a stone chipping your windscreen when thrown up by another car, a wild animal running onto the road or drivers’ accounts of an incident not matching up, a dashcam can prove invaluable. Although the use of such cameras is on the rise, Seesam estimates that only around a fifth of car owners currently has one.

“Our handlers deal with at least one claim a week where footage from a dashcam would be of enormous help in establishing the circumstances of an accident, but no one involved, and no eyewitnesses, have any footage,” explains Viljo Kokla, the product manager for Seesam’s comprehensive motor insurance.

The insurer says that dashcams are most useful in situations where the accounts of those involved don’t match up, or where it needs to be established retrospectively how the accident actually occurred – for example, if there were no eyewitnesses or the circumstances of the accident remain unclear for another reason.

When drivers tell different stories

In one accident reported to Seesam, a statement given at the scene of a three-car collision was that the rear-most vehicle had hit the middle car, causing it to be propelled into the car in front of it. The person responsible for the accident also reportedly left the scene, with a photograph of their car’s number plate being taken as they drove off.

“When we contacted that driver, it turned out they had a dashcam,” Kokla reveals. “The footage clearly showed that their vehicle hadn’t come into contact with the middle car at all, whose rear bumper showed signs of previous damage. So the vehicle identified at the scene as causing the accident hadn’t been involved in it in any way. Cases like that perfectly illustrate why videos can be a huge help in handling claims.”

A dashcam can also be useful in cases of road rage when drivers’ accounts differ. In a recent incident, two vehicles began moving off one after the other when the traffic lights turned green. As soon as they cleared the intersection, both vehicles began to change lanes, but the driver at the rear pulled alongside the car in front and then ‘cut it up’. As a result, both the side of said driver’s own vehicle and the front of the other car were damaged.

“Both vehicles had dashcams, luckily, since the drivers’ stories contradicted each other and it would have been very difficult to clarify the situation without the footage,” Kokla notes.

Not all damage is caused by collisions

A dashcam can also prove useful in situations where no other vehicle is directly involved in an incident. For example, Seesam has paid out compensation for an accident in which two cars were travelling in opposite directions on an otherwise empty road. A stone was thrown up from under the wheels of one of the vehicles, striking the windscreen of the oncoming car. The dashcam footage was clear enough to see the stone being flung up and to identify which vehicle it came from. As such, Seesam compensated the claimant for the damage to their windscreen.

Without the footage, the client would essentially have had two options: to pay for the windscreen repairs themselves; or, if they had comprehensive insurance, to have the damage covered under that policy.

“An even more telling example is a comprehensive insurance claim where the client ran into a wild boar while driving in the dark in Lithuania,” Kokla adds. “The animal survived and fled into the woods. No photos were taken of it or the accident, and the client didn’t notify the police or emergency services at the scene. When their vehicle was taken in for repairs in Estonia, there were no longer any hairs or other traces on it that might have indicated an impact with a wild animal. It was impossible to determine with any certainty how the accident came about on the basis of the damage to the vehicle alone, but it did have a dashcam – and the footage clearly showed the boar running out onto the road and the subsequent collision. Thanks to that video, the facts of the incident were proven, the damage was covered under comprehensive motor insurance and the claimant was able to get their vehicle repaired without having to pay any excess.”

Every other car should have a camera

Although the use of dashcams is on the rise and they are proving increasingly helpful in claims handling, their potential is much greater.

“In an ideal world, every car that’s on the road would be fitted with one, but from an insurance point of view we’d be happy if, say, every other driver used one,” Kokla says. “The more cameras there are on the roads, the greater the likelihood that there’ll be footage that can explain accidents and other unexpected incidents.”

To encourage drivers to use dashcams, Seesam has added an extra benefit to the updated terms and conditions of its comprehensive insurance: where dashcam footage is available, the excess on a claim under the insurance is reduced by 100 euros.

“These days, you can get a good-quality dashcam for as little as 80 to 100 euros,” Kokla notes. “We want to encourage people to use technology that could be of real benefit to them if they get into an accident. If a dashcam helps establish the facts of what happened more quickly and objectively than might otherwise be the case, then everyone stands to benefit.”

To ensure that such footage is actually of use when needed, the insurer recommends using a camera at both the front and rear of the vehicle and checking from time to time that the device is recording and that its memory card is working. It is also worth checking the date and time, and making sure that nothing is obstructing the camera’s field of view.

“If you’re involved in an accident, it’s a good idea to save the dashcam footage separately as soon as you can to prevent the device from automatically overwriting it later on,” Kokla recommends. “But wherever possible, you should also take photos at the scene and of the damage, and report the incident to the police or emergency services if the situation requires it.”