Got into a hit and run, insurance estimates at $4700 damages, body shop is $7600. I want to get it fixed. How does the repair process work?

[Sofa King]

Depending on insurance company, rates may not change (accident forgiveness)... one accident doesn't affect mine. YMMV.

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[roadpilot]

For 2+ years I ran the body shop of the largest Chevrolet dealer in Kansas City. Here it is many years later, and I still see prejudice with respect to body shops being in bed with insurance companies. The basis seems to be that they do a worse job of repairs and cost the customer more money. That simply is not true! The real issue lies (pun intended) with lousy insurance companies.

Yup. The key is: There are good insurance companies and there are bad insurance companies. Do your research when buying a policy - no different than when you spend your hard earned money on anything else.

 

[roadpilot]

Depending on insurance company, rates may not change (accident forgiveness)... one accident doesn't affect mine. YMMV.

Never had a single rate increase directly attributable to a claim other than the 2 at fault I mentioned above (wife and daughter). All others the other drivers were deemed at fault. Zero issues, no increases due to the claim.

 

[mostWnted]

Anytime a shop is a "preferred" or "approved" shop, the shop has crawled into bed with the insurance company to get work, and you are getting shafted in the process.

Here is an example, or maybe 2 depending on how much I want to type.

1) MAPFRE preferred shops get paid .3 hrs to sand and buff any painted or blended panel.
The industry standard is .3 per full paint hour. Max 2.5 hours per car.

Ford PU truck, 8 foot bed, say 7 hours paint time, that is 2.1 hours sand and buff, but the shop is in bed with MAPFRE so the flat rate tech gets 18 minutes and that includes masking jambs, washing, etc, so you are getting at best a denib and finesse to get any dust out of the paint and not a sand & buff to get a nice smooth defect free surface.

2) MetLife will not pay a shop to wash a car when it is repaired so you get it back dirty, or just enough of a wash job to get all the shop dust off it, and heaven forbid it the car was worked on with a door off and the interior got dirty

3) MAPFRE shops have to use whatever parts I write on the appraisal. If I write absolute crap bottom of the junk pile KSI/Astro sheet metal, and the shop wants Keystone which is still crap but way better than KSI/Astro, they are only getting paid for KSI/Astro parts, they can't come back to me for a PPI (parts price increase) because they use Keystone ( Probably because KSI won't sell to them because they have sent so many crap parts back as unacceptable quality)

THE INSURANCE COMPANY IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! THEY ARE GOING TO SCREW YOU EVERY CHANCE THEY GET.

Use a body shop of your choosing, not theirs

they haven’t appointed one, and I’d already found one that seems to do quality work so I’ll go ahead and get in touch with them this week.

 

[mostWnted]

Good point. My wife's car got shunted from behind, there was just a scuff on the plastic "bumper", but the impact beam was seriously crushed underneath which you couldn't see from behind . $11000 just to replace that beam.

This is what I’m afraid of. I could theoretically buy the parts and replace them myself, surely there are videos on youtube, but what about the parts that are damaged inside that I don’t have the skills for.

 

[mostWnted]

^ This.

Whoever told you to pay $8K out of pocket is clueless. That initial estimate will climb close to 5 figures by the time they are done with it.

They did say that this was just based on the exterior damages. It’ll go up once they take it apart.

 

[Neggytive]

Many appraisers will not open a damaged hood, as we don't want the liability if it won't close and or it doesn't latch properly and then opens going down the road, obscuring the drivers view etc etc etc.

When in doubt I would put at the top of those types of appraisals "Visible Damage Only" followed with a line note that went something like this " note to shop,before starting any repairs or ordering any parts please perform a 2 hour tear down to expose hidden damage and call listed appraiser for a second inspection"

That lets the shop know that you know there is more going on than was visible to the appraiser ( we can only write what we can see even if we know from experience the shutter assy or other parts in back we can't see are damaged)

It also keeps the bean counters off our backs.

And that was the hardest part of being on the Insurance side, being creative enough to get around restrictions the carriers put on us.

Here is an example, there was one clown at Vermont Mutual that would scream of we paid for a bumper cover. He was an ICAR instructor and swore up and down no matter how bad a cover was damaged, it was repairable.

So I would go into a shop, and I as a former shop owner I was know for being an appraiser that was reasonable, and the shop would give me their estimate for a new aftermarket cover among other things.

I would tell the shop that the clown at VM would make my life a living hell if I gave him a $300 bumper cover, so the best I could to is give him 7 hours repair time at $40/hr, plus $50 dollars for bumper repair materials, plus Paint & Materials, adhesion promoter, flex additive, and bunch of single use clips. Toss another hour for tint and spray down to make sure the color matched and they would be happy.

Now I know the shop was going to replace the cover, and chances are the paint would be close enough without the tinting and test panels, and the shop knew I knew, but we never spoke of it.

The clown at VM would wave my appraisals around in front of other appraisers and tell them how great I was for getting shops to repair covers, I didn't get any emails or phone calls from people higher on the corporate ladder than I, the shop was happy, and the car owner got the car back looking as it was pre loss.

It all looked good on paper, the shop got the money they wanted for the repair, and I didn't get yelled at.

 

[Neggytive]

Don’t care if they are in bed with the insurance company if the work is done correctly and on time.

that is the problem, the work is not done correctly

Good point. My wife's car got shunted from behind, there was just a scuff on the plastic "bumper", but the impact beam was seriously crushed underneath which you couldn't see from behind . $11000 just to replace that beam.

I had one that I did at the drive in claims site, looked pretty simple, repair the bumper cover and incidentals.

Wrote it up, sent the owner on their way, a few weeks later I get a call to go see it at the shop with the cover off it.

Yes it needed the cover, and once torn down the impact bar/bumper reinforcement was found to be damaged, along with the foam absorber.

Not unexpected.

What was not expected was that the rear body panel was toast and the floor pan was damaged, and it needed a couple of hours on the frame machine to square everything up.

The day of the accident it was a nice sunny warm day, everything got stuffed in, the cover was nice and soft from being in the sun, and it just popped back into shape.

This is why I tell people no matter how light the hit, even if there is no visible damage always get the other persons information and have the car looked at by someone that knows what they are doing. Never go " oh it is nothing we don't need to exchange papers"

 

[timd38]

that is the problem, the work is not done correctly

You haven't seen my car, you don't know the body shop but you assume the work is not done correctly because the body shop i have used, by coincidence is a preferred State Farm facility. This is why I don't take forum recommendations.

 

[Neggytive]

For 2+ years I ran the body shop of the largest Chevrolet dealer in Kansas City. Here it is many years later, and I still see prejudice with respect to body shops being in bed with insurance companies. The basis seems to be that they do a worse job of repairs and cost the customer more money. That simply is not true! The real issue lies (pun intended) with lousy insurance companies.

If you are a DRP shop, you are giving up something to get the work. The insurance company is telling you that you will make more money on the volume of work.

Body work is a very low margin insustry

You are taking a lower flat rate, you are getting restrictions such as the one I mentioned above for S&B time.

One of the worst ones for DRP is GEICO

I was recruited by a dealership body shop, and I took the interview.

When I asked about GEICO I was asked to keep my voice down.

GEICO had their own appraiser on site and if they heard anyone not speaking their praises they would send work to other shops, starving that shop and techs would leave because there was not enough work for them to make a good weeks pay. After GEICO got their point across they would start sending work in overwhelming the shop with more work than they could handle.

Needless to say I declined the job offer.

 

[roadpilot]

You haven't seen my car, you don't know the body shop but you assume the work is not done correctly because the body shop i have used, by coincidence is a preferred State Farm facility. This is why I don't take forum recommendations.

Good decision.

 

[DarkMatterGrey]

Good point. My wife's car got shunted from behind, there was just a scuff on the plastic "bumper", but the impact beam was seriously crushed underneath which you couldn't see from behind . $11000 just to replace that beam.

Mine was replaced for way less on a 2022 Ecoboost. Plastic cover, plastic impact absorber, metal beam, and the rear sheet metal (removed/replaced spot welded), including paint for less than $5,000 US. All Ford parts.

 

[Alan Applegate]

I can't speak for today's body shops, but when I ran one, the net margins were over 25%. The higher the profit, the more bonus money I made.

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