Claims News Service, Oct. 3, 10:09 a.m. EDT — Dealing with inexperienced insurer claim staff is one of the top problems named by collision repairers, according to the results of a recent study released by a collision repair association. The study also examines other problems and issues collision repairers face — and it names the insurance companies that they view as being the worst offenders.

The study was commissioned by the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS), an association comprised of 6,000 collision repair businesses that work with consumers and insurance companies to repair collision-damaged vehicles. It was conducted by CSi Complete, and included both direct repair and non-direct repair facilities. All were asked about the problems they face and how they perceive their relationships with the top 13 auto insurers. Specifically, nine problems were examined:

?Suppressed Labor Rates

?Losing Customers to Steering

?Lack of Insurance Field Staff Training

?Database Abuse/Manipulation

?Insurer Dictating the Repair

?Refusal to Acknowledge P-Pages

?DRP Requirements

?Fear of Reprisal or Threats from Insurer

?Desk Reviews

Each issue was ranked by responders by how they viewed it as affecting their businesses: Dramatically Impacts, Somewhat Impacts, Little Impact, or No Impact. Of the nine issues, nearly all of the repairers surveyed (90 percent) said that lack of insurance field staff training was an issue that had an impact on their businesses, making it the top-rated issue for collision repairers. Other issues that significantly impacted repairers included losing customers to steering (89 percent) and suppressed labor rates (91 percent).

Some of the study's other results indicated problems beyond these serious issues. For instance, more than 82 percent of responders said that problems with insurers dictating repairs affected them, and 65 percent feared reprisal/threats from insurers. Seventy-five percent said that DRP requirements affected them, too.

“We could tell the adequacy of labor rates was a concern from the vast number of bills being introduced around the country to address the issue,” said Dan Risley, executive director of SCRS, in a statement. “The same is true of steering practices, which many states likewise have tried to address through legislation. Unfortunately, enforcement of such laws traditionally poses a challenge because hard evidence of steering is difficult to obtain, although we are hoping this may change as a number of collision repairers have begun to initiate lawsuits against insurers in an effort to show that steering cannot be tolerated.”

The survey also published rankings of the top three offending insurers for each issue, which were determined by the responses it received. These companies were perceived to have the most dramatic impact on collision repairers. The percentage of repairers reporting them is listed next to each insurer.

Lack of Insurance Field Staff Training

Progressive 39%

GEICO13%

Allstate11%

Suppressed Labor Rates

Progressive 20%

Allstate17%

State Farm 13%

Losing Customers to Steering

Progressive 23%

Allstate19%

GEICO14%

Insurer Dictating the Repair

Progressive 22%

Allstate19%

Nationwide12%

DRP Requirements

State Farm23%

Allstate14%

Farmers11%

Fear of Reprisal or Threats from Insurer

State Farm21%

Progressive16%

Nationwide13%

Other statistics and results are available in SCRS's complete report, which is available at www.scrs.com.

Interested in more auto-claim news and in-depth articles? Head over to Claims' auto-claim channel for more information.

Special Reports /

Collision Repair Study Exposes Problems

Related Stories

Recommended For You