Industry Insight with John Yoswick
—John Yoswick is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon who has been writing about the automotive industry since 1988. He is the editor of the weekly CRASH Network (for a free 4-week trial subscription, visit www.CrashNetwork.com). Contact him by email at jyoswick@SpiritOne.com.
Do Automakers, Insurers See Auto Body Shops Meeting Both DRP and OEM Certification Requirements?
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A panel during the Collision Indus- companies adjusting the key perfortry Conference (CIC) in November mance indicators (KPIs) by which included representatives of two au- they are measuring direct repair with Ed Attanasio tomakers and two insurance compa- shops? nies addressing a topic that repairers In terms of cycle time and its and others discussed at a previous impact on customer satisfaction, CIC: can an auto body shop partic- Lindorfer said insurers aren’t lookipate both in direct repair and OE ing for shops to compromise repairs certification programs, and meet the to return vehicles faster. requirements of with both? Ed Attanasio “We still want safe repairs, and “I would never say that’s im- sometimes safe repairs take lonpossible, but it is very difficult at ger for whatever reason may cause times,” said Ben Cid, collision busi- that,” Lindorfer said. “We’re not ness manager for Mercedes-Benz. asking anybody to take a shortcut “There are shops that do it. When and not do what they should do.” you’re having to prove…why some- At the same time, she said, the thing needs to be done a certain way, growth of ADAS and other technolwith Ed Attanasio there’s a lot more time invested in ogy impacting repairs in late model doing that. Again, it’s not that it’s vehicles shouldn’t impact all claims impossible. But it definitely takes given the average age of vehicles on a lot more time on the shop’s side the road is 11 years. “Let’s remember that not evto really…prove what needs to be ery car we repair is a new vehicle,” done.” with Ed Attanasio Sandee Lindorfer, auto line di- she said. “We need to be sure we’re rector at Allstate, said she sees it as repairing that vehicle, regardless less of a challenge. of age, appropriately. As the mar “We have many [OEM-certi- ket changes and we [see] more and fied shops] within our Good Hands more of the vehicles that are more Network,” she said. “Between our complex, we’re going to see that network and the OEMs, we have the KPIs are going to change. We’ll with Stacey Phillips more in common than we have dif- change with those KPIs.” ferences. At the end of the day, we She said Allstate has adjustboth want our customers to have a ed cycle time measures “over the safe and proper repair. I don’t think years because of the complexity of that [needing to offer] proof of re- repairs,” and good communication between shops and insurers will repair procedures with is as great [an issue] Stacey Phillips as it may have been in the past when solve issues about vehicles that are repair procedures weren’t easy to “out of the ordinary.” get your hands on.” “So I can’t speak for every in She said parts restrictions by surer; I can only tell you that we do the automakers are probably the reevaluate KPIs regularly,” Lindorfprimary area where there’s “friction er said. with Stacey Phillips Dan Tessadri, auto physical when a shop is trying to appease both the carrier and the OE.” When damage business consultant for those conflicts arise, she said, they CSAA Insurance, concurred. are addressed “case-by-case,” based “We look at the KPIs, at our on such things as “the contract that scorecards, on a yearly basis,” he we have with our customer” and said. “We look at the market and the state requirements. impact of the supply distribution and with Stacey Phillips “But there’s not too often that other factors like that.” we can’t come to some sort of agree- But panelist Pete Tagliapietra ment,” she said. of NuGenIT said those companies’ With CCC Intelligent Solutions practices don’t synch with what he and others documenting changes in sees in the auto insurance industry cycle time, “touch time,” parts costs as a whole. “When we look at scorecards and other metrics, are insurance
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and KPIs across the industry, some of those KPIs haven’t been updated in 10 years,” Tagliapietra said. “So repairers [on those programs] are being held to the same KPIs.” He also noted while the average vehicle may be 11 years old, the average age of repaired vehicles is between 6 and 7 years old. “That puts us at OBD-II and well into the new realm of technology as we know it today,” he said. “I think we need to consider that…You can’t look at KPIs based on the way we repaired cars in 1999, and hold [shops] to the same level, especially in terms of cycle time.” Aaron Schulenburg of the Society of Collision Repair Specialists also told the panel he’s always surprised and concerned when anyone suggests it’s not more challenging now than it’s ever been for shops trying to “appease both sides of the
equation” when it comes to automakers and insurers, saying that’s the crux of nearly “every single call that I get every single day.” He said he appreciated the automakers and insurers who at least took part in the panel discussion because the committee struggled to find people willing “to sit on the stage to talk about the things that really matter.” “There should be more who do,” Schulenburg said. “If they’re not willing to, there’s a bigger issue in this industry that’s leading to shops being stuck in the middle.”
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