2024
compiled by CRASH Network
Here’s our annual look back at some of the most interesting, important or entertaining quotes heard within the collision industry over the past 12 months.
“Any argument that the [court] somehow opened the floodgates to insurance litigation…is simply not true. If insurers are worried about the proliferation of negligence…claims, the solution is in their hands: They can simply handle claims in accordance with the minimum standards established by [state] law and regulation.”
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Consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, applauding an Oregon Supreme Court decision to uphold a lower court’s ruling that individuals – and not just the state – in some circumstances have a right to sue insurers for violation of the state’s “Unfair Claims Settlement Act”
“Our defaults have not changed at this time.”
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Mitchell’s Jack Rozint, announcing in January that the company’s estimating system would give users flexibility to change the formula used to determine blend time, but unlike Audatex and CCC Intelligent Solutions (which changed their systems in 2023), Mitchell was not changing its guidance of 50% of full refinish time for blending
“We often hear from our members, just as we did with blends, that the historic approach to set-up and measure doesn’t reflect what current requirements of modern-day vehicles and modern-day equipment require. We will perform a study that analyzes both of those tasks, and find a way to communicate back to the industry. I think a big difference between the blending project, where we had historical values established similarly by all three estimating systems, is that with the task of setting up a vehicle and measuring a vehicle, those times aren’t defined by any of the estimating systems. So we’ll be looking at it a little differently in how we produce our results. But I think it will have equal value to the collision repair centers out there who can then take that information and proceed forward.”
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Aaron Schulenburg, executive director of SCRS, the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS), announcing in mid-2024 the association’s follow-up to its blend study
“$7,200 short-pay is my average recovery on a repairable vehicle. That’s 78 percent more than the insurer’s last offer [and] 19 percent more than on total loss cases…and I won those cases using the insurance company’s umpire. This is a pattern and practice in Washington state.”
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Jeff Butler, a Seattle shop owner who also operates as an independent adjuster through Collison Consulting of Washington, speaking to state lawmakers in support of a bill (which did not pass) that would have given policyholders the right to call for an independent appraisal when there’s a disagreement about repair costs
“In April, we’re going to start doing inspections to make sure that our shops are doing what they’re told to do per our processes. We’re going to put our money where our mouth is in that sense because it is important.”
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Dan Dent, who oversees the certified collision repair network for Nissan, saying in January that his company would begin doing repair quality audits at the automaker’s certified body shops
“If it says two coats of basecoat, it’s two coats of base coat, not a third coat because I have some paint left in the gun. “It’s two coats because that third coat could make the radar not work.”
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Jeff Wildman of BASF saying at an industry event that film thickness on bumper covers or other parts installed over ADAS-related radar sensors must be consistent over the radar area, and that total film build must be within the range provided by the automaker and paint manufacturer
“We really haven’t had a time in years past where the responsibility for refinish technicians has been the safety of the people driving the car.”
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Ryan Brown of AkzoNobel, speaking as part of the same industry event panel discussion
“We’ve just explained to them: This is what your insurance company is willing to pay for the repair of your vehicle, but here is the research that says that this, this, and this needs to be done on your vehicle, and we want to make sure that your vehicle is getting back on the road properly, and in order to do that, you might have to pay some out-of-pocket expense. And because we sit down and really explain the situation to our customers, a lot of them are willing to pay extra to have their vehicle repaired the correct way.”
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Sue Black, co-owner of Dean’s Auto Body in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, saying the shop has started to sometimes charge customer co-pays to offset insurer short-pays
“One job that I was alerted to was a certified shop that left [broken] glass in the back seat and in a [child] car seat, and thought that that was okay, that that was acceptable. This is a certified shop. So I’m just saying this is a universal problem.”
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Liz Stein of Collision Industry Conference (CIC) “Industry Relations Committee,” saying the 26 examples the committee shared of vehicles with significant repair problems that were found during post-repair inspections hadn’t all been repaired at any single type of shop (i.e., just DRP shops, or just uncertified shops)
“We need to do a better job keeping our own house in order. You have these situations continually that cars are fixed at DRP facilities and they’re repaired incorrectly. The car comes into my shop or any number of shops and it’s found to be unsafe and the insurance carrier decides they’re going to total it. The shop reimburses the insurance carrier for that, but the next person in that local market who calls that insurer to file a claim is told that the best case for them is to go to that same shop that just repaired that vehicle that was bought back. And it happens time and time again. And I will tell you, the OEM networks in many situations are no different. There are shops on OEM networks that don’t repair cars correctly in certain situations. And because those body shops are owned by a dealership group, they continue to remain on that program. So it’s one thing to talk about doing the right thing in this room, but I would challenge insurers and OEMs both to start holding shops to the standards that we should all be held to.”
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Michael Bradshaw of K&M Collision in Hickory North Carolina, during the CIC discussion of poor-quality repairs
“We basically made some decisions on what is our fight and what’s not our fight. And I think it’s actually helped us support the consumer more. Because keeping them more involved and more updated, and peeling things back so they can see the transactions and what goes on when a supplement is submitted, really lets them know how hard you’re working for them, to get them taken care of. Keeping them up-to-date, giving them copies of what was submitted, letting them know the deficiencies when it comes back, letting them know what the potential out-of-pocket could be. They see we submit a repair plan that’s vastly different than the photo estimate the insurance company created, and it comes back with an initial difference, which is usually pretty large, but by the time you get down to the final bill and the gap is reduced substantially, you’re the hero. They’re happy for everything that you did throughout the repair.”
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Will Latuff of Latuff Brothers Auto Body in St. Paul, Minnesota, describing what’s changed after his business “parted ways with several DRPs”
“Oftentimes, our opposition has very deep pockets, and it would take years and years for us as independent repairers to pool the money and resources necessary to get some of the meetings that they get very easily. But the one thing that they don’t often have is constituents in the [lawmakers’] district. And so when they go down to the state Capitol to testify in opposition of our bills, they are often flying in from other states. Legislators do care about their constituents, and they do know that when the session is over, they have to go back and look you in the face. They have to see you at the barbecue joint, and they have to answer to you on why they voted against something that is very important to your business, or voted for something that hurts your business. And so I would say using our voice is the most important thing that we can do.”
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Jill Tuggle of the Auto Body Association of Texas, saying shops can help change policy at both the state and national level when they speak as someone who lives and works within their elected representative’s district
“It is amazing when we have a customer come in that has that endorsement and we don’t even have to look for used or aftermarket parts. So we’re trying to educate our customers to add that endorsement to their policy so the next time when we see them, there isn’t all the talk about aftermarket parts and the objections to them. It’s so incredibly inexpensive. My last customer told me it cost them about $15.”
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California shop owner Tiffany Silva, explain why she would like to see more insurance companies offering – and marketing – auto policies with OEM parts endorsements
“All of the manufacturers have training classes that are open to adjusters. I’ve been going to OEM training now for about 15 years. I could count maybe two times I’ve ever seen an insurance manager or adjuster at one of those trainings. The OEMs love to see them there. It’s not like they’re restricted from coming. There may be some work to be done to make [the training] more accessible for adjusters, given insurers’ staffing issues and time constraints. But I think taking away some of the mystery related to fixing these cars could really assist with the supplement process.”
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Andrew Batenhorst, manager of Pacific BMW Collision Center in Glendale, California, saying he like to see more insurance company representatives complete OEM repair training
“Rear auto-braking is incredibly effective and eliminates a large percentage of claims. But how fast are you going when you back up? Two, three miles per hour, tops. So what kind of claims are we going to eliminate with that system. Cheap claims. So in a hypothetical distribution of claims, if we throw out a whole bunch of cheap claims and recalculate the average, what happens? The average goes up. We didn’t make any claims any more expensive. We just threw out a whole bunch of cheap ones.”
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Matt Moore of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, on one way ADAS is impacting average severity
“Sam’s Club, at least up here, failed, and they’re all gone [from the Pacific Northwest]. Costco is thriving across the country. One of the big things that we learned about the difference is just a work-life balance [for employees]. We’ve all had techs who want to work 10- or 12-hour days. We don’t really allow that. We want to make sure they get their eight hours in and go home, to enjoy their family, be healthy, have longevity in life and longevity in the industry. We want fair compensation plans that make them want to not have to work 12-hour days.”
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Washington state shop owner Aaron Flett
“I was in a shop yesterday that was unable to get invoices for parts. So it delayed their ability to finalize their paperwork or close the repair orders (ROs).”
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Consultant Mike Anderson of Collision Advice, on the two cyberattacks on CDK in mid-2024 impacted more than just dealerships running CDK’s management system
“In the past, I’ve asked some of our higher-performing [graduates] working in our area for their tax returns and taken their [personal] information off and set them out so students and parents can see that they’re making good money. They don’t have to be worried about their son or their daughter going into a dead-end job. You can make a good living doing this.”
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Andrew Riggs, a collision repair instructor at Bellingham Technical College in Washington state
“What I don’t get is how would a vendor enter into a standardized pricing agreement on behalf of their customer. I remember when I first started coming to CIC a long time ago, we had carriers at that point that were trying to [purchase and] drop-ship parts to us and let them take care of that. So when I read this, it reminded me a lot of those days.”
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Virginia shop owner Barry Dorn, commenting on an agreement between Geico and asTech that the companies said was designed to ‘standardize pricing and reduce friction for diagnostic, programming and calibration operations’
“We didn’t really take this as being this massively negative thing. We’ve got a top carrier who most people would say they have struggled with, and now we have them bought in on what we do, how we do it, and are willing to, in our minds, step up and actually cover more OEM scans than they ever previously did.”
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Jason Vilardi, vice president of sales, insurance and estimatic relations for asTech, speaking of his company’s agreement with Geico
“I use the analogy of an egg in the bag. If you put an egg in a bag and I smash it, and I’m going to write an estimate on it, I can see it needs a bag, but really, I know it needs an egg, too. Couldn’t we get to that point that the initial estimates could recognize that as well.”
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Darrell Amberson of LaMettry’s Collision in Minnesota, saying the current photo-estimating systems or “AI-generated estimates” automate only the “write what you see” practice when such systems could do more to increase shop productivity
“[T]hese practices constitute illegal incentives or inducements to use DRP auto repair shops (also known as steering). It would also be illegal if an insurer used similar tactics regarding other services, such as calibration.”
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Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance Troy Downing, warning insurers in an advisory that his department’s review of complaints found some insurance companies paying more (and more often) for pre- or post-repair scans at their direct repair program (DRP) shops but not under similar circumstances if the scans were performed at a shop not on the insurer’s program
“And then we help guide [the driver] to the Certified Repair Network facilities that we have in our program to choose from.”
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John Eck of General Motors, announcing the company’s “GM Collision Assistance” app, which can detect accidents and ping the customers cell phone to provide assistance at the crash scene, including providing a list of the automaker’s certified shops