How to take photos for an insurance claim in India

Safety first: what to do before you photograph damage

No claim is worth an injury. Look at the scene before you step into it, and photograph from a safe spot.

• Power: if water has reached sockets, boards or a meter, keep away until an electrician has switched the supply off.
• Structure: cracked slabs, leaning walls and hanging ceilings can fall. Photograph them from outside the danger zone, using zoom.
• Water: floodwater can hide open drains, sharp debris and live wires. Do not wade in only for a photograph.
• Fire and chemicals: stay out until the fire service or the site owner says the area is clear.
• Vehicles: one insurer's flood guidance, Shriram General Insurance, says not to start a flooded engine, because it may damage the engine and transmission.

If you must move something to stay safe, take a photo of it first. Then note what you moved and why.

What to photograph for an insurance claim

A surveyor needs to see where the damage is, how large it is and what caused it. Three distances answer those questions.

• Wide: the whole building, room, vehicle or yard, so the location is clear. Include a gate, house number or nameboard.
• Medium: the damaged wall, machine or section, with its surroundings.
• Close: the crack, dent, burn mark or water line, with a scale such as a tape or a coin.

Then add the supporting shots.

• Cause: the broken pipe, fallen tree, overflowing drain or burnt wiring, if you can safely see it.
• Water line: the height of the mark on the wall, with a tape against it.
• Identity of items: serial or model plates on damaged appliances, machines and stock.
• Undamaged parts: nearby items that are fine. They show you are not overstating the loss.
• Documents: the policy copy, the vehicle registration, or the delivery challan for damaged stock.

Take more pictures than you think you need. A room with ten damaged items needs a wide shot of the room, then one medium and one close shot per item.

Before you clean up or repair: tell the insurer and wait for the survey

Photograph first, and inform the insurer as soon as it is safe. Insurers say the same thing in their own guidance. Shriram General Insurance asks policyholders to take clear pictures of the loss and make a video of the spot without disturbing it. It also says not to start repairs until the insurer and surveyor have been informed, as that may complicate the claim.

Your own insurer's rules may differ, so read your policy and the insurer's claim page. If a repair is needed to stop further loss, such as covering a leaking roof, photograph before and after, and keep the bills.

On timelines, IRDAI, the insurance regulator, issued its Master Circular on Protection of Policyholders' Interests, 2024. As reported by Business Today, it asks surveyors to submit reports within 15 days of allocation. Read the circular itself for the exact wording that applies to your policy type. This post is not a guide to those rules.

A video walkthrough with commentary

Photos show moments. A continuous video shows how one spot connects to the next, and that the damage is not from a different building.

• Start outside: film the gate, the road and the building front, then walk in.
• Move slowly: keep each damaged area in frame for a few seconds.
• Speak as you film: say the date, the address, what you see and what you have not touched. For example, "Ground floor store room, water line about waist height, stock not moved."
• End with the cause: show the broken pipe, the drain or the opening where water or fire entered.

Keep it to a minute or two for each area. A short, steady video is easier to review than a long, shaky one. Do not narrate guesses about who is at fault.

Why visible time and place help

A reviewer may see your picture days or weeks later, with no way to ask where it was taken. A plain phone photo can raise questions for ordinary reasons.

• Phone clock: the date inside a photo comes from the phone, and a wrong clock gives a wrong date.
• Chat apps: apps such as WhatsApp usually compress pictures and may remove the location data from the file.
• Gallery copies: old pictures, screenshots and forwards can look the same as fresh ones.
• Typed details: a date typed on afterwards tells the reviewer nothing about when the photo was taken.

A date, time and place that appear on the image itself survive forwarding. They do not prove cause or value, but they answer the first question a reviewer asks: was this taken at the insured place, after the loss? Our post on adding date and time to a photo on Android and iPhone covers the basic methods.

GPS can drift indoors, in basements and between tall buildings, so a small offset is not a reason to doubt anyone.

For surveyors and claims teams: a standard photo set

A fixed set makes reports comparable and shows quickly what is missing. Adapt the list to the line of insurance.

• Site and identity: the entrance, the nameboard, the address and the policy copy.
• Overview: four wide shots of the building or yard, from different corners.
• Each damaged area: wide, medium and close, numbered in the order walked.
• Cause and evidence: the origin of fire, the breach, the failed part, the water line with a tape.
• Items and stock: serial plates, quantities and batch labels.
• Salvage and safety work: what was moved, covered or repaired, with before and after.
• Repair and survey notes: a short note per area, with the date and the person present.

Write the same short note on every file, such as "Area 3, godown, east wall, water line 90 cm." Notes make a folder of 60 photos readable by someone who was not there.

For teams working on site routinely, a site inspection app can hold the set as one numbered job record.

How to do it with Verafii

Verafii is a live-capture camera and report app. Insurance and claims are among the industries it is built for. It does not file claims with an insurer, and it does not replace the insurer's own claim process.

1. Open Verafii and start a new job for the claim or the survey site.
2. Take each photo in the app's own camera. There is no gallery or file picker, so only live pictures are possible.
3. Check that the GPS and time are burned into each photo at the shutter. Capture works offline, and uploads when the phone is back online.
4. Record a live video with audio for the walkthrough, and say the date, address and what you see.
5. Add a note to each photo or video. Every photo, video and note lands in one numbered session tied to the site.
6. If a fake location was used on the phone, the photo is flagged on the photo, report, verify page and dashboard.
7. Tap to make the one-tap PDF report before leaving the site. It carries the location, device, time and a QR code.
8. Share the PDF with the insurer or surveyor.

Anyone can then check a Verafii report by scanning the QR, with no account and no app.

The app and dashboard work in 11 languages, including Hindi, Marathi and Tamil. Reports and photo watermarks are in English. Read more on the GPS camera photo report page.

Sending a report that can be checked

Send one organised file, not forty loose pictures. Keep the originals too, in case someone asks.

• Order: overview, then each area, then cause, then items and notes.
• Labels: area names that match the claim form and the surveyor's visit.
• Original file: send the PDF itself, not a screenshot of it. The check only works on the file received.
• Same set for everyone: the policyholder, surveyor and insurer should all see the same version.

Verafii's verification page shows details of the report. Dropping the file you received into the page fingerprints it in your browser, and nothing is uploaded. A match means the file is untouched. One SHA-256 fingerprint covers the PDF, every photo and every video. Our post on scanning the QR and dropping in the file walks through it.

Verafii also offers, on request and at extra cost, a customer signature in the report and a white-label verify page. Both are add-ons, not part of the plan.

What photos can't prove, and a checklist

Photos show what the camera saw, at one time and place. Be clear about the limits.

• Cause: a picture of a cracked wall does not say whether a flood, an old defect or poor work caused it.
• Cover: whether your policy covers the loss depends on its terms and exclusions. Flood is often excluded from basic home policies, so read yours.
• Value: photos do not set the amount. Bills, estimates and the surveyor's assessment do.
• Staging: a tool can show when and where a photo was taken, not whether something was placed or damaged beforehand.
• Acceptance: whether a claim, photo or report is accepted is the insurer's decision. No app or report changes that.

Before the surveyor arrives:

• Make the site safe and note anything you moved.
• Inform the insurer and keep the claim number.
• Take wide, medium and close photos of each damaged area.
• Photograph the cause, the water line and serial plates.
• Record a video walkthrough with spoken commentary.
• Keep damaged items unless the insurer says otherwise.
• Save the policy, bills and repair estimates.
• Make one organised report, and keep the originals.