Collision Repair | ||
On the other hand, State Farm says it insures about 300,000 of those vehicles. Like other insurers, its antique and classic car program assumes extremely limited use of the vehicles. However, the company doesn't define limited use but looks at it as "primarily driving the vehicle to parades, in parades and to and from antique and classic car shows," says State Farm Spokesman Dick Luedke. "Coverage would not normally be denied because the vehicle was being used another way when it was in an accident," he says. "The claims costs for those specialty cars are about one-fifth the claims costs of all of the other cars that we insure." Despite the increase of total losses in the collision repair industry, because of the high values of collector vehicles, few are totaled. That is, unless they weren't insured for the right amount. But, according to Hagerty, that normally isn't the case. "The vast majority of our vehicles are considered repairable," Hagerty says. "If you think about it, the higher value a vehicle has the more likely it is to be repaired. They are unlikely to be totaled unless they were dramatically underinsured."When Barber submits an estimate, it indicates his $75 hourly labor rate that he says insurance companies pay. "Collision shops ask me how I get that. We just tell them straight up this is how we work," he says. He's upfront with insurance companies and explains to them that his shop is not a flat-rate shop and that he pays his employees by the hour. "I'm not based on flat rate, so therefore the customer has the right to have their car repaired anyway they want," Barber says. "If they bring it back here for repair, the insurance companies pay our rates." |
