What Real Risks Do Insurers in Uzbekistan Face with Remote Vehicle Inspections and How Does VIEWAPP Prevent Them?

Remote pre-insurance inspections help insurers reduce the number of on-site visits and speed up CASCO policy issuance. However, moving the inspection process to a digital format does not, by itself, guarantee that the materials collected accurately reflect the vehicle’s condition at the time the insurance contract is concluded.

Insurers need to be confident that the photographs were taken as part of the current inspection, show the correct vehicle, cover all required areas, and have not been replaced or altered.

When a Remote Inspection Fails to Show the Vehicle’s Actual Condition

During negotiations, one insurer in Uzbekistan shared a telling case from its practice. A vehicle underwent a remote pre-insurance inspection and was accepted for insurance coverage. Later, the owner filed a claim for damage that, as it turned out, had already existed before the insurance contract was concluded.

For the insurer, this created the risk of paying compensation for damage that should not have been covered under the new insurance contract.

If the owner was aware of the pre-existing damage but nevertheless took out insurance and later claimed that damage as an insured loss, this creates not only the risk of an inspection error but also the risk of a deliberate attempt to mislead the insurer.

This case clearly demonstrates why simply receiving photographs is not enough in a remote inspection. The insurer needs to be able to establish that the materials genuinely reflect the vehicle’s condition at the time the insurance contract was concluded and were not prepared or altered to conceal pre-existing damage.

When Photographs Exist, but Their Reliability Cannot Be Verified

A typical unprotected scenario looks simple: the customer photographs the vehicle, the images are sent to the insurer, a specialist reviews them, and a decision is made.

But between these two steps, a number of questions arise:

• Were the photographs actually taken during the current inspection?
• Do they show the vehicle being insured?
• Were all required areas of the vehicle captured?
• Were previously taken photographs used?
• Were the images altered?
• Does the location where the photographs were taken match the declared inspection location?
• Do all the materials belong to the same inspection?

If the system does not control these parameters, the insurer is effectively assessing not the vehicle’s actual condition, but a set of images provided by the customer.

This is where opportunities for manipulation arise. A customer may use old photographs, deliberately leave a damaged area out of the inspection, submit images of another vehicle, or alter an image so that existing damage is not visible.

At the same time, some risks can arise without any intention to deceive the insurer: the customer may choose an inappropriate angle or simply fail to capture a necessary part of the vehicle.

What Vulnerabilities Arise During a Remote Inspection?

Old Photographs

If an application allows users to upload images from their gallery, it is difficult to reliably establish that those images were taken during the current inspection.

For a pre-insurance inspection, this is critical: the vehicle’s condition needs to be documented immediately before the insurance contract is concluded, rather than through a photograph taken at an earlier time.

Incomplete Coverage of Required Angles

Even without any intention to conceal damage, a customer may fail to show a damaged part of the vehicle or take a photograph that does not allow it to be properly assessed.

If the system does not verify the required angles, the completeness of the inspection depends on the customer’s and reviewer’s attentiveness. In cases of deliberate manipulation, an incomplete set of angles can also be used to keep a problem area out of view.

Vehicle Substitution

Photographs of another or similar vehicle may be submitted instead of the vehicle being insured.

Inspection materials therefore need to be linked to the specific vehicle, while the sequence of its capture needs to be controlled.

Location Spoofing

If coordinates are treated simply as device data and are not checked for signs of manipulation, they cannot provide reliable confirmation of where the inspection actually took place.

Image Tampering or Substitution

Modern image-editing tools create an additional risk. It is therefore not enough to assess only what is shown in a photograph — it is also important to verify the origin of the material and detect signs that it has been altered.

A secure remote inspection must therefore control not just an individual photograph, but the entire process of capturing and transmitting inspection materials to the insurer.

How VIEWAPP Protects Remote Inspections

In VIEWAPP, security controls are built directly into the inspection workflow.

Photographs are captured directly within the app. The user cannot simply select a ready-made image from the gallery and present it as a photograph taken during the current inspection.

Required vehicle angles are verified. The system recognizes the required angle and guides the user to capture it correctly. This reduces the likelihood that an important area of the vehicle will remain undocumented.

Technical capture data is recorded. The system stores information about the time, device, and coordinates associated with the materials, providing additional context for verifying the authenticity of the inspection.

Geolocation integrity is monitored. If signs of geolocation spoofing are detected, the system records the violation and flags it for the reviewer. The demonstration for the insurer included a real example of such spoofing.

Photographs of screens are detected. The system detects attempts to submit an image by photographing another device — one way of reusing previously created materials.

Content integrity is verified. VIEWAPP uses mechanisms to detect material modification and checksum-based integrity checks. As a result, the reviewer receives more than just a set of photographs: the materials also contain additional evidence supporting their authenticity.

From Controlling a Photograph to Controlling the Entire Inspection

The experience of insurers shows that an inadequately protected digital inspection process creates risks regardless of whether the issue results from deliberate manipulation or an ordinary mistake.

If pre-existing damage goes unnoticed, the insurer may have to investigate the situation only after a claim has been filed. Even when the issue is identified during claims handling and an improper payout can be avoided, the insurer has already incurred additional costs for verification, expert assessment, communication with the customer, and dispute resolution.

A secure digital inspection therefore needs to address two tasks simultaneously:

• document the vehicle’s condition;
• verify the authenticity of that documentation.

VIEWAPP protects the entire remote inspection process: it controls how photographs are captured, verifies the required angles, links inspection materials to the vehicle and inspection location, and detects signs of image substitution or manipulation.

For insurers, this means more than simply reducing the number of on-site visits. It provides a more reliable basis for accepting vehicles for insurance coverage, with a lower risk of discovering pre-existing damage only after the insurance contract has been concluded.