This month, INSIGHT continues its look at the latest Who Pays for What? surveys that were included with the December issue of INSIGHT. In this issue we detail the compiled payment frequencies for the second set of 20 commonly non-included P-page operations.
Over 200 shops have reported their experiences on P-page reimbursement as of the writing of this article.
The second set of 20 P-page operations includes some common non-included operations such as color tinting to achieve a proper match and covering the entire vehicle to prevent overspray from today’s urethane vehicle finishes. Refinish labor reimbursements appear to be receiving increased attention from collision repair facilities to help bolster their bottom line sales and profits.
As stated last month, virtually all of the shops that responded to this year’s survey have reported receiving reimbursements more frequently than last year. This is especially true in market areas that have been slow to receive labor rate increases or where materials reimbursement rates are low.
In markets where materials rates are below average, charging for additional refinish labor operations is the best method for increasing the multiplying factor used to determine the total materials reimbursement rate.
The most commonly paid P-page items in this month’s survey were for brake bleeding and the restoration of corrosion protection and rust proofing. These are all fairly common items that receive attention in INSIGHT’s Market Watch section.
Also showing high scores for payment was additional prep work for salvage parts. Undoubtedly this is due to the insurance industry’s increased specification of salvage components and shop usage patterns.
Additional time to "fit" non-OE parts received a relatively low score of from 4-6 percent in the "always" pay category. Surely this is in part due to the lower percentage of aftermarket parts usage and specification than salvage or OE parts. However, some shops that use aftermarket parts on a regular basis have frequently commented that they have a good feel for what parts fit well. Therefore, they restrict their purchases to those parts, eliminating the need to charge for additional repair labor to make the parts work.
One surprising low score was recorded for color sand and buffing of refinished areas on a vehicle. Color sand and buff ranged from a low "always" score of 3.19 percent for State Farm to a high of 7.52 percent from Farmers Insurance. "Sometimes" payments ranged from a low of 33.33 percent for GEICO to a high of 37.5 percent for Farmers.
The lowest scores this month were recorded for the various road testing operations for safety and wind leaks and noise. In most cases, no shops reported "always" payments for these items.
Also receiving suprisingly low scores was the P-page item for reprogramming of the vehicle’s clock or radio. If the battery cable was disconnected from the vehicle at any time during repair, both of these items will need to be restored. Most shops report reprogramming vehicle clocks, leaving radios to the customer. But, they apparently do not bother to charge for their efforts- chalking this non-reimbursed service up as another effort to help increase customer satisfaction and to eliminate hassles for the customer.
Reprinted from the April 1997 Issue of Collision Repair Industry INSIGHT.
© 1997 Collision Repair Industry INSIGHT. All Rights Reserved
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