DETROIT — The debate over rental data, the average length of rental and who should pay continued at CIC in Detroit, but the panel of insurers, rental companies and repairers did agree on one thing—the process can only improve with communication.
The average length of rental varied by source, with Mitchell reporting 14.1 days; 11.32 days from CCC; 10. 7 days from Enterprise Rent-A-Car; and 14.28 days from the Society of Collision Repair Specialists.
CIC Insurer-Repair Relations panel moderator Patrick O’Neill with Bodyshop Revolution, asked panelists to focus on two issues at CIC on July 29: whether or not rental coverage is extended when a formula-based repair completion date needs to be extended, and the consequences when rental coverage is not extended.
Both insurance company and rental company panelists said their companies stress leniency to extending rental dates when extenuating circumstances exist.
“A lot of factors go into looking at length of rental — driveable vs. non-driveable; DRP vs. non DRP. To look at extenuating circumstances is something we instruct our people to take into consideration,” says Christopher Andreoli with Progressive.
“What we see is insurers are willing to extend rentals for things like drive/non-drive. We have to keep in mind that repairers will also have weekends and holidays, etc. We look at 4-5 or 3-6 hours per day as a benchmark. It is purely a guideline,” says Frank LaViola with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. “But if the customer is aware of the debate, discussion or battle over extending rentals, it negatively affects everyone’s CSI.”
McKenzie Spalding with Choice Rental, which serves the Minneapolis area, said open communication is the key to keeping the process smooth for all players and maintaining customer satisfaction. “It is a constant game of communication. If there is any just reason why a rental extension is necessary, we do our best to communicate the reason to the insurance company and make that process as simple as possible. For the repairer, if the rental is not extended and the customer is given that information, it becomes a game of damage control to manage the customer’s expectations.”
Navigating the repair process with flexibility, rather than rigidity to remain competitive, is necessary, said Aaron Schulenberg, executive director of the Society of Collision Repair Specialists. “Sometimes rental dates are extended. Repairs aren’t hard and fast. There is flux in the system. As we had discussions about the formula and where it fell outside of industry averages, we talked to insurance partners who said ‘we need to set higher expectations because our partners are setting higher expectations, and we need to be competitive,’” he said.
Regardless of insurer expectations, shops need to be realistic with customers to best ensure customer satisfaction, Schulenberg says. “Giving a consumer a longer repair is not going to hurt the experience. But a consumer thinking it is going to be shorter and it taking longer is going to hurt the consumers. Instead of trying to push performance through unrealistic expectations, what if we use data to manage the customer’s expectations and improve their experience.”
And the customer experience does not begin and end with the consumer.
“Everyone is our customer — insurance companies, repairers and consumers. We try to create value by being a conduit of information,” says John Vito with Hertz. “We are continuously integrating with our partners out there, like Mitchell and CCC. It is about bringing the exceptions to our partners, saying this is outside business rules and figuring out what to do about it.”
The biggest problem is insurers using a problematic method to try and improve repairer performance, says Darrell Amberson, vice president of operations with LaMettry’s, an eight-shop MSO. “The primary reason insurers [use formula-driven rental coverage] is to drive cycle time. They want us to fix cars faster; and we put in an immense effort to fix and improve our processes. But it is never going to be a complete science. We deal with a lot of variables,” he says. “There are more cooperative ways to improve cycle time. Instead, what steps can be taken for our mutual benefit to speed up the process? These complicated formulas create an unrealistic expectation for the customer.”
