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Insurance companies should get behind Right to Repair. We've so far waited three months and have an $11,0000 price tag to the insurance company on a minor colli

Insurance companies should get behind Right to Repair. We've so far waited three months and have an $11,0000 price tag to the insurance company on a minor collision that bent our car's front fascia and broke a sensor -- no frame or metal damage. I would have happily repaired on my own if possible just to avoid being without the car for so long. If only I could get those parts and have a decent service manual.

cityofdelusion 3y ago
I'm curious as to what make/model is damaged -- I self-repair all my cars and have no issues with access to parts and service manuals. Ebay is full of suppliers and mechanics operating a black market on these things.
vlovich123 3y ago
Insurance companies (of any kind) are not incentivized to find the cheapest service. Anything they pay out is passed on via premiums. Indeed, the more expensive service is better because a 2% profit on $1000 makes them 10x more profit than 2% profit on $100. There’s some competition here in that a marketplace of insurance companies can compete on the premiums so there can be downward pressure, sometimes. But for things that impact all insurance companies like this equally, then insurance companies would also be opposed because more expensive repairs = more money in their pocket. That’s why you see things like medical insurance not being aligned with lowering medical costs.
- unyttigfjelltol 3y ago
  The facts in your post are wrong. Insurance companies establish rigorous processes to steer repairs to the low cost provider and push that provider to make only necessary repairs. Policy holders might go along with it and might not, same as other insurance scenarios.
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    > steer repairs to the low cost provider and push that provider to make only necessary repairs. That's not my experience in the UK and Norway. At least with the good insurance companies. I creased the rear passenger door of my Tesla S in the UK three years ago. It was purely cosmetic damage confined to a 10 cm diameter area at the front bottom corner. My Norwegian insurance paid 4 kUSD for a new door skin and a repaint of almost the whole side of the car at the Tesla recommended body shop and ten days of car rental. It's interesting to see how such things differ from country to country and insurer to insurer.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  > That’s why you see things like medical insurance not being aligned with lowering medical costs Health insurance companies are lambasted all the time for denying coverage for certain procedures or medicines or requiring prior authorizations to prove it is medically necessary or evidence based treatment.
  - monocasa 3y ago
    They do both to carefully approach the 20% overhead allowed by the ACA. Denying claims wholesale, and allowing the claims they do approve to increase in cost year over year greater than inflation so that they can make the total pie that they take 20% of greater each year.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Then why do some of them exceed the minimum medical loss ratio by quite a bit? Why did Elevance simply not deny more claims so it could get closer to 80% rather than 90% and book more net income? https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2023/mar/health-insurer-financial-insights-volume-11-p1.html https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2023/mar/... > MEDICAL LOSS RATIO TRENDS >Reported loss ratios are 89.4% for Elevance (fka Anthem), 86.0% for CVS Health (Aetna), 83.8% for Cigna, and 82.8% for UnitedHealthcare. Loss ratios have been impacted by seasonal patterns and the return to more stable utilization than seen in 2020. Seems like an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.
speed_spread 3y ago
Insurance companies will just follow the money like they do in (USA) healthcare. Expensive repairs create a world where there are two kind of people, those who are insured, and those who aren't. A high cost of repair guarantees you _really_ don't want to be in the latter group, so you'll pay whatever is asked to be in the first part. On their end, the insurance companies will use their weight to negotiate much lower prices on parts and service, increasing their margins.
- legutierr 3y ago
  I’m not sure how this logic applies when having insurance is mandatory. If you don’t have insurance, you’re not driving legally. Are there really people out there who wouldn’t otherwise buy insurance, but they choose to do so only because the cost of repairs is too high?
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Having liability insurance is mandatory. Having collision insurance is optional (unless your car is financed, in which case it is likely required by the terms of your financing, but not by law). I don't carry collision insurance on my daily drivers (the newest of which is 9 years old), because it's too expensive for the coverage offered.
  - pandaman 3y ago
    Only liability insurance is mandatory in many (all?) states. And even if you believe that your car can only be damaged by insured drivers and you will always be able to make a claim against their insurance, the sufficient coverage on the property damage liability is just $5K in California, for example.
  - 6510 3y ago
    Do you want to sell insurance against something that costs $100 or something that costs $10 000?
AlexandrB 3y ago
I think insurance companies are also salivating at having access to detailed driving data so they have more reasons to deny claims and raise rates. I'm not sure they want to jeopardize that by getting on automakers' bad side.
sokoloff 3y ago
How will right to repair speed up your particular repair, though? If a part is back-ordered, it's still going to be back-ordered even with right to repair. Said differently, what is blocking you from doing the repair today? Is it just that the sensor needs coding to the car or calibration?
- alistairSH 3y ago
  This. Back in 2013/2014, my Jeep was rear-ended. Some of the body panels were back-ordered, so the repair took 2 months longer than expected. Even if I was could have done the body repair, I couldn't have purchased the parts. Likewise, a co-worker had his airbags stolen last year and it was many months until Acura had replacements available.
  - klyrs 3y ago
    > Likewise, a co-worker had his airbags stolen last year and it was many months until Acura had replacements available. A mystery that resolves itself by the end of the sentence: who the hell would steal airbags? Clearly, there's demand from people who don't want to wait months for a replacement... talk about making a market.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      > who the hell would steal airbags? Someone who didn't want to pay $400-800 per bag to get their banged up car back on the road. Who the hell buys used tires? Who buys used catalytic converters? Who puts mismatched fenders on their car? People who need a car to get to work and don't have a lot of money and, in the case of bags and fenders, may (wisely) not have collision coverage...
      - gottorf 3y ago
        I would have assumed that someone who would go out of their way to steal somebody else's airbags would also not bother with safety inspections or whatever that might have kept their broken car from being on the road.
ineedtosleep 3y ago
I guess it depends on the state. A friend recently was hit and had their car only slightly damaged. They went to insurance car shops that insurance recommended, but they all declined to fix the car. They ended up getting paid out and fixed it themselves since they're already skilled with maintaining vehicles, and they pocketed the rest.
- _puk 3y ago
  Does this not affect insurance? We have categories of write off, so if insurance has paid out it affects the future value of the car. This would be a category D [0], which makes a big difference on resell. 0: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/know-how/what-is-a-category-d-car-insurance-write-off/ https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/know-how/what-is-a-catego...
  - bityard 3y ago
    In the US, firstly it is considered unfashionable by many to buy a used car altogether ("you're just buying someone else's problems!") and secondly, the only thing that can reliably affect resale value is if it condemned with a "salvage title." Which can mean a few things but usually means the car suffered more damage than it is economical to fix. But just the fact that a car was in a collision or had a claim against it does not automatically affect the car's future insurance rates or resale value. We have a company called CarFax that produces vehicle history reports for used cars, but there are many problems with it. Starting with the fact that all reports are voluntary. I have looked at cars that were clearly in floods when you know what to look for and yet the CarFax was squeaky clean.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      The majority of cars sold are used cars. Yes there are some who won't consider a used car, but they are a minority (a large minority, but still a minority). The average car last 12 years, the typical new car is replaced every 3 years with a newer one. A salvage title is only used when someone intends to restore the car, and then it goes back to a normal title once restored (or at least that is how my state did it 15 years ago - each state is different). You get the salvage title only to justify paying taxes on the actual value of the car (sales tax on a car is for actual value not the price you paid, so a salvage title is useful to prove it isn't worth what the book says) It will show up on CarFax as restored then. (though as you note most such issues never get a salvage title as they are not sold)
chongli 3y ago
Wouldn't an insurance company naturally want to avoid the additional liability of personal, unlicensed repairs? What if someone improperly repairs the brakes on their own car and they fail on the road, causing a collision?
- lokar 3y ago
  All repairs are unlicensed.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    The parent was using the term in the context of insurance companies or manufacturers authorizing the repair. Not that of a legal licensing system.
  - chongli 3y ago
    Maybe the US is different then, because here in Canada auto mechanics are licensed after a ~4 year registered apprenticeship.
    - NikolaNovak 3y ago
      I just learned that recently - I was at a quick oil change place and asked them to quickly look at my brakes while down there. After some commotion their manager came over and explained (In a friendly fashion) they are technically a "lube shop" with "lube technicians" and not licensed mechanics and cannot do or say anything but change my oil and maybe fill up the fluids / change wipers. Interesting!
      - mwint 3y ago
        Likely this has more to do with their professional liability insurance than any government regulation, directly.
        somerandomqaguy 3y ago
adrianmonk 3y ago
> would have happily repaired on my own if possible I actually did that once. The claims adjuster was pretty surprised at the request, and she confirmed multiple times that I really wanted them to pay out less money (parts but no labor). Then she was like, "Well, I don't know why you'd want to, but it's your decision, so OK." The reason: someone stole my stereo and, in the process, they destroyed several pieces of the dashboard. The insurance didn't cover my (aftermarket) stereo, just the dashboard. I was going to install a replacement stereo myself. I had installed the other one (that was stolen), so I already knew how to do it, and I knew that stereo installation requires removing the same dashboard parts. If I'd let insurance pay a shop to do it, I would have needed to have them install the parts, then take it home and remove the same parts, install the stereo, and then put them back. Buying parts at the dealer is less work and takes less time.
- MikeKusold 3y ago
  They were probably surprised because the insurance company would have paid the fair market rate for the replacement (parts & labor based on various quotes), regardless of if a professional did the work, if you DIYed it, or even if you never decided to repair it. You likely talked yourself out of additional money.
  - jkingsman 3y ago
    Yeah this process caught me off guard during a recent repair. In my mind, the model was "Insurance company will pay what the repairs cost." How it actually works is "Insurance company will give you the cash to cover what they believe the repairs cost. If it costs more, they'll cover the difference. You are free to do anything you want with the money." Walking away with leftover cash in your pocket is a normal and above-board part of the process if you can do the repair more cheaply/by yourself/don't get it fixed; it's not fraud.
    - function_seven 3y ago
      > Walking away with leftover cash in your pocket is a normal and above-board part of the process if you can do the repair more cheaply/by yourself/don't get it fixed; it's not fraud. A friend had paint damage to his truck caused by a canopy (a large EZ-UP) being blown into it repeatedly during a storm. He filed a claim and the adjuster determined it would be something like $5,000 for a proper repaint. He asked another friend of ours–who worked in insurance—if it was okay to just keep the money and ignore the paint damage: "Yeah, you suffered a loss, you were compensated for that loss, that's all there is to it. It's up to you if you want to repaint, or if you consider it diminished value compensation, or whatever. It's your money free-and-clear." It feels wrong somehow, but it really isn't. Just don't try to claim the same damage again in the future.
rasz 3y ago
Why? Bigger payouts -> bigger premiums -> bigger profits.

cityofdelusion 3y ago

I'm curious as to what make/model is damaged -- I self-repair all my cars and have no issues with access to parts and service manuals. Ebay is full of suppliers and mechanics operating a black market on these things.

vlovich123 3y ago

Insurance companies (of any kind) are not incentivized to find the cheapest service. Anything they pay out is passed on via premiums. Indeed, the more expensive service is better because a 2% profit on $1000 makes them 10x more profit than 2% profit on $100. There’s some competition here in that a marketplace of insurance companies can compete on the premiums so there can be downward pressure, sometimes. But for things that impact all insurance companies like this equally, then insurance companies would also be opposed because more expensive repairs = more money in their pocket. That’s why you see things like medical insurance not being aligned with lowering medical costs.

unyttigfjelltol 3y ago
The facts in your post are wrong. Insurance companies establish rigorous processes to steer repairs to the low cost provider and push that provider to make only necessary repairs. Policy holders might go along with it and might not, same as other insurance scenarios.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  > steer repairs to the low cost provider and push that provider to make only necessary repairs. That's not my experience in the UK and Norway. At least with the good insurance companies. I creased the rear passenger door of my Tesla S in the UK three years ago. It was purely cosmetic damage confined to a 10 cm diameter area at the front bottom corner. My Norwegian insurance paid 4 kUSD for a new door skin and a repaint of almost the whole side of the car at the Tesla recommended body shop and ten days of car rental. It's interesting to see how such things differ from country to country and insurer to insurer.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
> That’s why you see things like medical insurance not being aligned with lowering medical costs Health insurance companies are lambasted all the time for denying coverage for certain procedures or medicines or requiring prior authorizations to prove it is medically necessary or evidence based treatment.
- monocasa 3y ago
  They do both to carefully approach the 20% overhead allowed by the ACA. Denying claims wholesale, and allowing the claims they do approve to increase in cost year over year greater than inflation so that they can make the total pie that they take 20% of greater each year.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Then why do some of them exceed the minimum medical loss ratio by quite a bit? Why did Elevance simply not deny more claims so it could get closer to 80% rather than 90% and book more net income? https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2023/mar/health-insurer-financial-insights-volume-11-p1.html https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2023/mar/... > MEDICAL LOSS RATIO TRENDS >Reported loss ratios are 89.4% for Elevance (fka Anthem), 86.0% for CVS Health (Aetna), 83.8% for Cigna, and 82.8% for UnitedHealthcare. Loss ratios have been impacted by seasonal patterns and the return to more stable utilization than seen in 2020. Seems like an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.

speed_spread 3y ago

Insurance companies will just follow the money like they do in (USA) healthcare. Expensive repairs create a world where there are two kind of people, those who are insured, and those who aren't. A high cost of repair guarantees you _really_ don't want to be in the latter group, so you'll pay whatever is asked to be in the first part. On their end, the insurance companies will use their weight to negotiate much lower prices on parts and service, increasing their margins.

legutierr 3y ago
I’m not sure how this logic applies when having insurance is mandatory. If you don’t have insurance, you’re not driving legally. Are there really people out there who wouldn’t otherwise buy insurance, but they choose to do so only because the cost of repairs is too high?
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Having liability insurance is mandatory. Having collision insurance is optional (unless your car is financed, in which case it is likely required by the terms of your financing, but not by law). I don't carry collision insurance on my daily drivers (the newest of which is 9 years old), because it's too expensive for the coverage offered.
- pandaman 3y ago
  Only liability insurance is mandatory in many (all?) states. And even if you believe that your car can only be damaged by insured drivers and you will always be able to make a claim against their insurance, the sufficient coverage on the property damage liability is just $5K in California, for example.
- 6510 3y ago
  Do you want to sell insurance against something that costs $100 or something that costs $10 000?

AlexandrB 3y ago

I think insurance companies are also salivating at having access to detailed driving data so they have more reasons to deny claims and raise rates. I'm not sure they want to jeopardize that by getting on automakers' bad side.

sokoloff 3y ago

How will right to repair speed up your particular repair, though? If a part is back-ordered, it's still going to be back-ordered even with right to repair. Said differently, what is blocking you from doing the repair today? Is it just that the sensor needs coding to the car or calibration?

alistairSH 3y ago
This. Back in 2013/2014, my Jeep was rear-ended. Some of the body panels were back-ordered, so the repair took 2 months longer than expected. Even if I was could have done the body repair, I couldn't have purchased the parts. Likewise, a co-worker had his airbags stolen last year and it was many months until Acura had replacements available.
- klyrs 3y ago
  > Likewise, a co-worker had his airbags stolen last year and it was many months until Acura had replacements available. A mystery that resolves itself by the end of the sentence: who the hell would steal airbags? Clearly, there's demand from people who don't want to wait months for a replacement... talk about making a market.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    > who the hell would steal airbags? Someone who didn't want to pay $400-800 per bag to get their banged up car back on the road. Who the hell buys used tires? Who buys used catalytic converters? Who puts mismatched fenders on their car? People who need a car to get to work and don't have a lot of money and, in the case of bags and fenders, may (wisely) not have collision coverage...
    - gottorf 3y ago
      I would have assumed that someone who would go out of their way to steal somebody else's airbags would also not bother with safety inspections or whatever that might have kept their broken car from being on the road.

ineedtosleep 3y ago

I guess it depends on the state. A friend recently was hit and had their car only slightly damaged. They went to insurance car shops that insurance recommended, but they all declined to fix the car. They ended up getting paid out and fixed it themselves since they're already skilled with maintaining vehicles, and they pocketed the rest.

_puk 3y ago
Does this not affect insurance? We have categories of write off, so if insurance has paid out it affects the future value of the car. This would be a category D [0], which makes a big difference on resell. 0: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/know-how/what-is-a-category-d-car-insurance-write-off/ https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/know-how/what-is-a-catego...
- bityard 3y ago
  In the US, firstly it is considered unfashionable by many to buy a used car altogether ("you're just buying someone else's problems!") and secondly, the only thing that can reliably affect resale value is if it condemned with a "salvage title." Which can mean a few things but usually means the car suffered more damage than it is economical to fix. But just the fact that a car was in a collision or had a claim against it does not automatically affect the car's future insurance rates or resale value. We have a company called CarFax that produces vehicle history reports for used cars, but there are many problems with it. Starting with the fact that all reports are voluntary. I have looked at cars that were clearly in floods when you know what to look for and yet the CarFax was squeaky clean.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    The majority of cars sold are used cars. Yes there are some who won't consider a used car, but they are a minority (a large minority, but still a minority). The average car last 12 years, the typical new car is replaced every 3 years with a newer one. A salvage title is only used when someone intends to restore the car, and then it goes back to a normal title once restored (or at least that is how my state did it 15 years ago - each state is different). You get the salvage title only to justify paying taxes on the actual value of the car (sales tax on a car is for actual value not the price you paid, so a salvage title is useful to prove it isn't worth what the book says) It will show up on CarFax as restored then. (though as you note most such issues never get a salvage title as they are not sold)

chongli 3y ago

Wouldn't an insurance company naturally want to avoid the additional liability of personal, unlicensed repairs? What if someone improperly repairs the brakes on their own car and they fail on the road, causing a collision?

lokar 3y ago
All repairs are unlicensed.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  The parent was using the term in the context of insurance companies or manufacturers authorizing the repair. Not that of a legal licensing system.
- chongli 3y ago
  Maybe the US is different then, because here in Canada auto mechanics are licensed after a ~4 year registered apprenticeship.
  - NikolaNovak 3y ago
    I just learned that recently - I was at a quick oil change place and asked them to quickly look at my brakes while down there. After some commotion their manager came over and explained (In a friendly fashion) they are technically a "lube shop" with "lube technicians" and not licensed mechanics and cannot do or say anything but change my oil and maybe fill up the fluids / change wipers. Interesting!
    - mwint 3y ago
      Likely this has more to do with their professional liability insurance than any government regulation, directly.
      - somerandomqaguy 3y ago

adrianmonk 3y ago

> would have happily repaired on my own if possible I actually did that once. The claims adjuster was pretty surprised at the request, and she confirmed multiple times that I really wanted them to pay out less money (parts but no labor). Then she was like, "Well, I don't know why you'd want to, but it's your decision, so OK." The reason: someone stole my stereo and, in the process, they destroyed several pieces of the dashboard. The insurance didn't cover my (aftermarket) stereo, just the dashboard. I was going to install a replacement stereo myself. I had installed the other one (that was stolen), so I already knew how to do it, and I knew that stereo installation requires removing the same dashboard parts. If I'd let insurance pay a shop to do it, I would have needed to have them install the parts, then take it home and remove the same parts, install the stereo, and then put them back. Buying parts at the dealer is less work and takes less time.

MikeKusold 3y ago
They were probably surprised because the insurance company would have paid the fair market rate for the replacement (parts & labor based on various quotes), regardless of if a professional did the work, if you DIYed it, or even if you never decided to repair it. You likely talked yourself out of additional money.
- jkingsman 3y ago
  Yeah this process caught me off guard during a recent repair. In my mind, the model was "Insurance company will pay what the repairs cost." How it actually works is "Insurance company will give you the cash to cover what they believe the repairs cost. If it costs more, they'll cover the difference. You are free to do anything you want with the money." Walking away with leftover cash in your pocket is a normal and above-board part of the process if you can do the repair more cheaply/by yourself/don't get it fixed; it's not fraud.
  - function_seven 3y ago
    > Walking away with leftover cash in your pocket is a normal and above-board part of the process if you can do the repair more cheaply/by yourself/don't get it fixed; it's not fraud. A friend had paint damage to his truck caused by a canopy (a large EZ-UP) being blown into it repeatedly during a storm. He filed a claim and the adjuster determined it would be something like $5,000 for a proper repaint. He asked another friend of ours–who worked in insurance—if it was okay to just keep the money and ignore the paint damage: "Yeah, you suffered a loss, you were compensated for that loss, that's all there is to it. It's up to you if you want to repaint, or if you consider it diminished value compensation, or whatever. It's your money free-and-clear." It feels wrong somehow, but it really isn't. Just don't try to claim the same damage again in the future.

rasz 3y ago

Why? Bigger payouts -> bigger premiums -> bigger profits.