Collision repairers give the grades to Canadian insurers
Story by ALLISON ROGERS
The relationship between collision repairers and insurance adjusters is a lot like a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich. The insurers are the peanut butter, while the repairers bring the sweet skills to the mix as the jelly. A PB and J sans jelly just doesn’t make sense—although, neither does plain jam on bread.
On top of that, most unfamiliar with the inner workings of the repair planning process would assume forming an agreement on the repair of a customer’s vehicle to be a simple task—much like the creation of the beloved PB and J. Maybe someday…in a perfect world. Tensions between the automotive aftermarket and the insurance industry have been strung tight since COVID-19 was thrown into the mix. However, according to the results of Collision Repair’s annual Insurer Report Card, it appears some insurers are taking change in stride and bettering relations with repairers across the board.
Take this year’s results for Canada’s public insurers into account; last year, both Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) and the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) were delivered ‘F’ grades by their collision repairing peers. This year, each insurer has come back marginally stronger, pulling that overall grade up an entire two letters to a C+ for MPI and a C for ICBC.
Private insurers, on the other hand, seem to be taking more time to adjust to post-pandemic realities. Intact Financial and Desjardins both took hits to their grades this year, each dropping down an entire letter grade from 2020’s results. Aviva, State Farm, TD and Wawanesa were all able to up their overall scores by at least a half-letter grade.
For the third straight year, the Co-Operators have come out on top overall, scoring the top three grades in all categories. The private insurer was also the only company to receive zero ‘F’ grades on its dispute management skills; all other insurers had at least one F-grade on their dispute management sheets.
To learn more about this year’s Insurance Report Card, visit collisionrepairmag.com.
