The UK accident book as claim evidence, and the US equivalent

This page is about the evidential value of that record rather than the record itself. What the accident book is, and who must keep one, is set out by HSE and by the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979. Neither answers what the entry is worth two years later, when a letter of claim lands.

What is an accident book entry worth once a claim arrives?

It was written before anyone had a reason to argue. A record made on the day carries weight precisely because it was made without hindsight and without knowing which facts would later matter.

In England and Wales this is not a matter of custom. The Pre-Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims attaches specimen lists of documents likely to be material in different kinds of claim, and the list for workplace claims names the accident book entry first. The same list also calls for “other entries in the book or other accident books, relating to accidents or injuries similar to those suffered”. (justice.gov.uk) The accident book is therefore potentially the record of every similar accident that went before, and a pattern of near identical entries at the same location tells a story about knowledge and foreseeability that no witness statement can undo.

The book cuts both ways. A clear, complete entry is often the strongest single document a defendant has; a run of vague entries describing the same hazard over three years is often the strongest a claimant has. Both follow from the same thing: contemporaneous records are believed.

What does a good accident book entry contain?

The approved BI 510 form prompts for the injured person’s details, the date and time, the place, what happened, the injury, and who made the entry. (books.hse.gov.uk) Entries that do useful evidential work tend to carry more than the form asks for.

A mechanism, not a label. “Slipped on wet floor” is a label. “Stepped from the loading bay onto the walkway, right foot slid forward, floor wet from rain blown through the open shutter” is a mechanism. Mechanism is what an engineer or a court can test against the alleged breach of duty; a label cannot be tested.

An exact location and an exact time. “Warehouse” is a building; “Bay 4, two metres inside the roller shutter door” is a place that can be photographed, measured and compared with the last inspection record. Shift, light levels and who was on duty all follow from the time, and all three are routinely in dispute.

Named people: the injured person, whoever made the entry, anyone who saw it and anyone who attended. Witnesses become untraceable quickly, and a name recorded on the day can still be found.

What was done next: first aid given, whether the person continued working, whether the area was isolated, whether a supervisor attended. The immediate response is frequently the fact in issue on causation and on severity.

Its own timing, meaning when the entry was made as distinct from when the accident happened. Four hours later and four weeks later are different documents even if the words are identical.

Cross references to photographs, a maintenance job number, a RIDDOR reference or a CCTV retention request. An entry that points to other evidence extends the life of that evidence, because it tells a later reader that it once existed.

None of that is legally required. It is what survives an adversarial process.

What does a thin entry cost?

It costs time, and time in the pre-action phase is short and fixed.

Under the Pre-Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims, the defendant has 21 days to reply to the letter of claim and a maximum of three months from that acknowledgement to investigate and state whether liability is admitted. Under the Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury (Employers’ Liability and Public Liability) Claims, which covers claims valued at not more than 25,000 pounds on a full liability basis, the response on liability is due within 30 business days of the claim notification form for an employers’ liability claim and within 40 business days for a public liability claim. (justice.gov.uk) (justice.gov.uk)

Those clocks start when the claim arrives, not when the evidence is found. Where the entry is thin, the investigation has to be rebuilt from payroll, rotas, memory and whatever photographs survived on someone’s phone, inside the same window.

The second cost is structural. Under the personal injury protocol, a defendant who denies liability is expected to enclose with the response the documents in its possession that are material to the issues and would be likely to be ordered to be disclosed by the court. (justice.gov.uk) A denial has to arrive with documents, and if the only document is a one line entry reading “hurt back lifting”, the denial rests on a record that does not support it.

The third cost is never itemised. Weak contemporaneous evidence rarely loses a defensible claim outright; it converts it into one settled because defending costs more than settling.

How does the accident book sit alongside the statutory record?

Three records are commonly confused, and each answers to a different regime.

The accident book sits under social security law. Regulation 25 of the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979 requires owners or occupiers of mines and quarries, occupiers of premises subject to the Factories Act 1961, and employers with 10 or more persons normally employed at the same time on or about the same premises, to keep readily accessible a means, whether in a book or books or by electronic means, of recording the particulars of accidents, in a form approved by the Secretary of State. (legislation.gov.uk) HSE Books describes the accident book BI 510 as using “an approved format for recording accident information”, and the current edition contains 50 perforated record forms. (books.hse.gov.uk)

The RIDDOR record sits under health and safety law. Regulation 12 of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 requires the responsible person to keep a record of each reportable incident and reportable diagnosis with the particulars specified in Part 2 of Schedule 1, and a record of any injury at work that incapacitates a person for routine work for more than three consecutive days. (legislation.gov.uk) The reporting duties that sit on top of that record are covered in RIDDOR explained.

The claim file sits under the contract of insurance and the civil procedure rules, created after the fact by people who were not there, from whatever the first two contain.

The accident book and the RIDDOR record are therefore not the same document and do not capture the same field set, and neither was designed around the questions a claim asks two years later.

How long are accident records kept?

Two statutory minimums are clear, and both are three years. Regulation 25 of the 1979 Regulations requires an accident record to be preserved for at least three years from the date of its entry (legislation.gov.uk), and regulation 12 of RIDDOR 2013 requires an entry to be kept for at least three years from the date it was made. (legislation.gov.uk)

The limitation position does not line up with either. Section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980 sets a three year period for personal injury actions running from the date on which the cause of action accrued or the claimant’s date of knowledge, if later. Where the injured person was under a disability when the cause of action accrued, including where they were a child, section 28 extends time, and for actions to which section 11 applies the extension is three years from the date the disability ended. Section 33 gives the court a discretion to disapply the section 11 time limit. (legislation.gov.uk, section 28, section 33)

A claim can therefore be brought well after a three year retention period has run out. Pulling the other way, the storage limitation principle in the UK GDPR requires personal data to be kept in a form permitting identification for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed, and accident records are plainly personal data. HSE Books puts the duty on the person keeping the book rather than on the format: the accident book “uses an approved format for recording accident information”, but “you must store this information in line with GDPR and your organisation’s data protection policies”, and “it is your responsibility to make sure GDPR requirements are met”. (books.hse.gov.uk)

Reconciling a three year floor, a limitation exposure that can run far longer, and a principle that discourages indefinite retention is a judgement for each organisation and its advisers. The accident book does not answer it.

Who reads the accident book, and what gets disclosed?

The injured person and their representatives, the employer, the insurer, any third party administrator handling the claim, a loss adjuster, safety representatives and an inspector may all have occasion to see accident records or extracts from them.

Disclosure is not limited to the entry for the accident in question, as the Annex C workplace list makes clear by calling for entries relating to similar accidents or injuries. At the same time, every entry contains an identifiable person’s health data. The BI 510 is made up of 50 perforated record forms (books.hse.gov.uk), so a completed record can be detached from the book and filed elsewhere rather than left legible to the next person who opens it. Retrieving an entry years later and restricting who can read it are not competing needs, but both have to be designed for, and a bound paper book on a shelf serves neither well.

What is the United States counterpart?

There is no single American equivalent. The role is split across two documents.

The first is the OSHA 301 Incident Report. Under 29 CFR 1904.29, employers covered by the recordkeeping rule must use OSHA forms 300, 300-A and 301, or equivalent forms, for recordable injuries and illnesses. (osha.gov) What each of those three forms holds, and how long it must be kept, is set out in OSHA 300, 300A and 301. The OSHA 301 is the Injury and Illness Incident Report, and a 301 or equivalent must be completed for each recordable case entered on the 300 Log within seven calendar days of receiving information that a recordable injury or illness has occurred. The rule expressly contemplates substitution: “Many employers use an insurance form instead of the OSHA 301 Incident Report, or supplement an insurance form by adding any additional information required by OSHA.” (osha.gov)

The second is the first report of injury, filed with the state workers’ compensation authority or the carrier. Its name, content and filing deadline are set state by state, and it is frequently the insurance form that 1904.29(b)(4) has in mind, so the same facts serve federal recordkeeping and state compensation at once.

Retention differs too. Under 29 CFR 1904.33, the OSHA 300 Log, the privacy case list if one exists, the annual summary and the OSHA 301 forms must be saved for five years following the end of the calendar year that the records cover, and the 300 Log must be updated during that period for newly discovered cases and changes in classification. (osha.gov)

The American record set is therefore more prescriptive about form and longer on retention, while the British one is shorter, more flexible in format, and more exposed to a limitation period that can outlast it.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• HSE Books, Accident book BI 510, 2018 edition, ISBN 9780717666935: https://books.hse.gov.uk/product/9780717666935
• The Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979 (SI 1979/628), regulation 25: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1979/628/regulation/25
• The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/1471), regulation 12: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/1471/regulation/12/made
• Ministry of Justice, Pre-Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims, including Annex C lists of documents: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/protocol/prot_pic
• Ministry of Justice, Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury (Employers’ Liability and Public Liability) Claims: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/protocol/pre-action-protocol-for-low-value-personal-injury-employers-liability-and-public-liability-claims
• Limitation Act 1980, section 11: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58/section/11
• Limitation Act 1980, section 28: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58/section/28
• Limitation Act 1980, section 33: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58/section/33
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 29 CFR 1904.29, Forms: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1904/1904.29
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 29 CFR 1904.33, Retention and updating: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1904/1904.33

Last reviewed: 16 September 2026

About Logincident. Logincident is a data and software company whose configurable platform captures structured evidence at source through a mobile app, forms, photographs, GPS and offline capture, and presents it in dashboards and reports. We are not a law firm or a claims handler, and nothing on this page is legal advice.