Video redaction for UK insurers: what actually matters in practice

Insurers handle large volumes of video evidence, from dashcams to CCTV to body-worn footage. Most of the challenge is not capture, it is what happens next: review, disclosure, and redaction.

Video is now central to how claims are assessed, challenged, and defended. But as volumes increase, so does the complexity of handling it properly.

In practice, most insurers do not struggle with whether redaction is required. The friction comes from volume, timing, and the number of parties involved. A single claim can bring together multiple sources of footage, each with different disclosure requirements.

UK insurers detected £1.16 billion worth of fraudulent claims in 2024, with volumes rising year on year.

Association of British Insurers, 2025

More investigations mean more footage, and more footage means more redaction.

When do insurers actually need to redact video?

Redaction is required whenever footage contains identifiable individuals who are not central to the claim. This shows up in three main situations:

• Subject access requests, where claimants request footage of themselves.
• Legal disclosure during disputed claims, where footage is shared with solicitors or courts.
• Fraud investigations, where third parties are often captured incidentally.

The principle is simple but difficult to apply at scale. Individuals are entitled to their own data, not everyone else's.

Why is video redaction becoming a bigger issue?

The issue is not just regulation, it is volume and complexity.

Claims increasingly rely on multiple sources of evidence. A single incident may combine fixed CCTV, dashcam footage, mobile footage, and body-worn video. Each source brings a different format, quality level, and field of view.

At the same time, fraud detection activity is rising, which increases the number of cases that require deeper investigation and evidence handling.

The result is more footage per claim, more people captured in each frame, and more work required before anything can be shared.

Why does video redaction slow claims down?

Redaction slows claims because it sits on the critical path of disclosure.

Footage has to be reviewed frame by frame to identify faces, number plates, screens, and other identifying details. In busy environments such as roads or public spaces, a short clip can contain dozens of individuals.

When this work is done manually, it becomes a bottleneck. As volumes increase, so do delays in:

• Responding to subject access requests
• Sharing evidence with legal teams
• Progressing disputed claims

This is where redaction moves from a compliance task to an operational constraint.

Where do insurers get caught out?

The most common issue is disclosing footage too early without considering downstream requirements. Insurers may share unredacted footage at the start of a process, particularly during initial investigations, only to find that redaction becomes mandatory later when the footage is used in legal proceedings. There is also a tendency to underestimate how long multi-party footage takes to process, especially when the same clip needs to be shared with different stakeholders under different conditions.

Why is multi-party disclosure so difficult to manage?

Because each audience has different rights and expectations.

The same piece of footage may need to be shared with:

• The claimant
• Brokers or loss adjusters
• Opposing solicitors
• The court

Each version needs a different level of redaction. A claimant may see more of their own context, while third parties must be removed for legal disclosure.

Without a controlled process, teams end up duplicating effort and losing track of what has been shared and why.

How do subject access requests add pressure?

Subject access requests introduce fixed timelines into an already complex workflow.

Under UK GDPR, organisations typically have one month to respond, with limited scope for extension. When multiple requests arrive together, for example after a major incident, teams face:

• Tight deadlines
• Large volumes of footage
• High expectations on accuracy

This is where manual processes break down.

What does a workable process look like?

A workable process is one that treats redaction as part of the claims workflow, not a one-off task. In practice, that means using tools that can automatically detect faces, number plates, and screens, and then allow teams to create different versions of the same footage for different audiences. It also requires a clear audit trail that records who accessed the footage, what was changed, and why. Without that structure, redaction becomes inconsistent and difficult to manage at scale.

In summary

Across all of these scenarios, the pattern is consistent. Video is easy to capture but difficult to share responsibly at speed. The pressure comes from volume, multiple stakeholders, and fixed deadlines.

When redaction sits outside the workflow, it creates delays and rework. When it is built into the process, it becomes predictable and manageable.

AI Redact by Aetopia

AI Redact by Aetopia is built for this kind of workload.

It supports teams handling high volumes of video evidence, where the same footage needs to be prepared for different audiences without losing control of the process. The platform already underpins large-scale evidence workflows in policing, managing hundreds of thousands of assets and producing multi-party disclosures as standard.

For insurers, the audiences change - to claimants, brokers, solicitors, and the courts but the underlying workflow does not. If your team is feeling the deadline more often than it is beating it, particularly when subject access requests cluster after a major incident, come and talk to us. We can run the workflow against the kinds of clips that are actually causing the backlog, in the formats your disclosure regime accepts.