By CRM staff
Toronto, Ontario – April 2, 2019 –- Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) announced last month that all 260 shops in the province would have one year to achieve new training and equipment requirements or else they would lose their accreditation with SGI.
SGI will be implementing differential compensation, a tiered accreditation model. In order to gain tier one shop status facilities must have I-CAR gold class status, purchase the necessary equipment to repair today’s vehicles (resistance spot welder, pulse Mig welder, self-piercing rivet gun, vehicle scan tools, and aluminum repair tools), have welding certification and refinish system product training.
According to CBC News, most shops rely on a share of SGI’s 80,000 claims per year for the bulk of their income.
When Ryan Smith, SGI vice president of Appraisal, Salvage, and Claims Technical Services, presented this statement at the Saskatchewan Automotive Repairers Association (SAAR) spring conference, a woman in the crowd suggested that this would be tough on rural shops.
“Half of the Saskatchewan people live in rural communities … We don’t have the volume so it’s going to take years to pay this equipment off, versus the high-volume shops in the cities.” She asked if the small-town shops could receive some sort of financial loan.
Smith said no. “Frankly, we’re not going to enable an inefficient industry. Consolidation needs to occur,” said SGI vice-president Ryan Smith.
She wasn’t the only one who also voiced this opinion.
“We don’t think it’s a good thing as one of the tools they’re requiring shops to have is more than $30,000,” an anonymous repairer told Collision Repair. “They’re expecting small town shops to do this and they can’t fork over the money within that time span.”
While some believe this will drive small town repair shops out of business, the main objective is to keep everyone up-to-date and make sure safe repairs are put in place.
In addition, starting March 11, 2019, all collision repair partners must reference OEM repair procedures as part of the repair planning process on all SGI claims.
