As I travel around the country speaking with collision repairers, insurers, and vendor groups, it strikes me how often the audience does not know what is going on outside of their area of the industry.

I know we struggle to keep up with our daily workload and balance family life, but there is value in reading, exploring, and gaining an understanding of the various segments of our industry and how world events affect them. Exchange rates, the price of a barrel of oil, and European Union regulations all influence each of the parts of our collective industry.

For example, we know that the price of a barrel of oil going up will hike up the cost of a gallon of gas. If that spike is severe, folks reduce their driving, which in turn reduces accidents. We have also learned from recent history just how much rising oil prices can affect used car values of larger vehicles, especially at a time when the fleet on the U.S. roads is full of trucks and SUVs. This combination resulted in lower values of these vehicles and more of these vehicles being totaled.