SCRS says State Farm's parts ordering system cuts repairers' profits

The release sites several actual examples of how State Farm benefitted by securing parts at lower prices, but how those came at the expense of repairers’ and parts vendors’ profitability. SCRS encouraged repairers to look at how program such as these impact their business, and “how you wish to react to them in the interest of your business’ health and welfare.

Here is the unedited letter:

Prosser, Washington, April 2, 2012

From 2007 to 2009 State Farm Insurance, the nation's largest auto insurer, tested a parts ordering program with repair facilities who participated in their DRP program in California and Indiana. That program revolved around a parts discount to State Farm from the auto manufacturers, which was facilitated through an electronic parts ordering program. In April of 2011, nearly two years after the conclusion of the previous test program, State Farm released an online video discussing future parts ordering initiatives. That same month, Insurance & Technology published an article referencing a report released by Stephen Applebaum and the Aite group, which clearly stated that "State Farm is leading the way to greater control of the auto repair procurement process with its announcement of a new electronic parts-ordering initiative."

While the article was brief, Applebaum's post on the Aite site elaborated that "the U.S. collision industry repairs about 10 million vehicles annually, at an average cost of about US$3,000 each, for a total of approximately US$30 billion. Of that, parts represent 33%, or about US$10 billion. Given the level of influence carriers exert and that much being spent on parts, it is inevitable that carriers will seek to gain greater visibility into, and control over, the parts procurement process. After all, each percentage point is worth US$100 million to someone." Less than a year later, in the early months of 2012, the carrier began testing the program - an online parts-ordering/bidding software program developed by a New Zealand firm called PartsTrader - in areas of the United States such as Tucson, AZ and Birmingham, AL.

State Farm facilitated the rollout in test areas with both the parts vendors as well as the repair shops in their network. In a letter issued to parts suppliers, State Farm wrote "All repairers currently participating in the Select Service program have agreed to use automated replacement parts locating services or applications if requested by State Farm, and will be required to use PartsTrader. Suppliers registered with PartsTrader will have the ability to provide competitive pricing on the entire parts order through the quoting process which may provide opportunities to increase sales volumes." Other communications were sent to repair facilities outlining the electronic parts ordering and estimate workflow process.

Below is a real example of the resulting quotes from the bidding process for parts necessary to repair front-end damage on a job requiring only 4 parts: 3 bumper components and a lamp.

These slides are screen captures of pricing bid on by OEM dealers where the PartsTrader program is currently testing in the United States. As you can see, one dealer maintained the OEM MSRP list price, while the other two offered a 15.46% discount off the list price, reducing the list price by $54.42. You will also notice that the margin on the discounted parts is 2% lower than the part with the MSRP pricing. What this means is that the repair facility will make $25.00 less profit on this part and the dealer will make $29.42 less in profit. The insurance carrier will save $54.42 due to the reduction in the list price. Will the consumer ever see any of these savings, or do these savings increase the carrier's profit margin?

On this part, the two of the dealers have offered a 23.52% discount on the list price, with a 2.01% decrease in margin. This equates to a $5.66 loss in profit to the repair facility, a $7.97 loss to the dealer and a $13.63 savings to the insurance carrier.

On this part, two of the dealers have offered a 23.39% discount on the list price, with a 2% decrease in margin. This equates to a $2.57 loss in profit to the repair facility, a $3.62 loss to the dealer and a $6.19 savings to the insurance carrier.

As you can see, on this part, two of the OEM dealers have offered a 22.09% discount on the list price, with a 2% decrease in margin. If the shop selected OEM, this equates to an $18.29 loss in profit to the repair facility, a $25.20 loss to the dealer and a $43.49 savings to the insurance carrier. However, this slide also contains 3 "Recycled Grade A" part options. The cheapest used part is listed at $25.00 cost. Hypothetically, if the repairer were to bill this part with a 25% markup, that part would list on the estimate for $31.25, producing $6.25 in profit to the repair facility. In comparison to the OEM part with the OEM MSRP, the used part could equate to a $62.65 loss in profit dollars to the repair facility, while saving the insurance carrier $165.61.