San Diego, California — November 4, 2013 — Mitchell has released its Industry Trends Report (ITR) for the fourth quarter of 2013. Providing deep analysis of alternate parts use and actual cash value trends in auto physical damage, along with education on eBilling and ePayment trends, technology solutions and implementation strategies, the latest ITR offers valuable data to insurance carriers and payers and collision repair centres.
Mitchell Vice President of Industry Relations Greg Horn builds on the last ITR article that looked at the drivers of severity for repairable estimates. The Auto Physical Damage edition of the report dives deeper into the model-specific data, analyzing whether vehicle age and the correlating increase of alternate parts availability affects repairable estimate cost.
“A look at the average repairable estimate cost for a three-year-old Camry shows a spike in the cost of the overall repair from 2010 onwards,” said Horn. “My first assumption was that the cost of the repair would be driven by more complex vehicles that have more expensive components.” Detailed analysis revealed that alternate parts use was found to keep costs down but continued to fluctuate while labour cost increased.
For the first time, the Mitchell ITR includes a section from J.D. Power that analyzes actual cash value trends for vehicles in the United States and Canada. They report that more lease trade-ins and gently used vehicles will enter the market, providing some relief to the high values seen in the used car market.
Mitchell’s quarterly publication has served the auto physical damage and casualty industries for more than a decade and provides deep visibility into data-driven trends in the P&C market. The complete report is available at www.mitchell.com/industry-trends-report. First published in April 2001, Mitchell’s ITR now reaches more than 33,000 collision and casualty industry professionals.
Mitchell also offers a webinar, Industry Trends Live, on the report. Greg Horn will provide a deeper look into the trends, information and studies highlighted in this quarter’s ITR on December 4, 2013. To sign up for the webinar, please visit mitchell.com/register.
You can read the complete Q4 ITR here.
