On the football field, clipping draws a penalty every time. A vocal segment of the collision repair industry believes body shops should be throwing a flag on clipping – full rear-body sectioning – saying the procedure can encroach upon a car’s structural integrity, safety and value.

State Farm estimators will no longer be including clipping in their estimates, although they will provide reimbursement on a full rear-body sectioning job if both the shop and policyholder agree that it should be done.

“We recognize that this technique has become more complex. It is more efficient for State Farm staff to no longer consider full rear-body sectioning on our estimates,” according to a company statement. “If claim personnel encounter repairers bidding for full rear-body sectioning, we will inform the repairer and vehicle owner of our position and explain our willingness to pay for traditional individual component replacement methods. However, if a repair facility elects to perform a full rear-body section and the customer agrees and authorizes the repair, we will make payment accordingly.”

The carrier goes on to note that “repair facilities determine the specific repair process on individual repair jobs…safety concerns are associated with poor repair quality and improper repair techniques in any repair. We look to the repair industry for this type of information. We have not studied potential costs, as use of this repair technique is relatively small. It will be more efficient for us to no longer consider this technique in our estimates.”

Some in the industry are forecasting that other major insurers will eventually be taking a similar route.

“Better late than never,” says Mark Pierson at Princeton Auto Body in Princeton, Ill. He and his wife Pam are among the more outspoken opponents of full rear-body sectioning. “Most of us clipped our last car in the 1980s. Some still feel that they’ve done it in the past and they can keep doing it. It’s not as common as it was in the past, but shockingly we are finding more of this going on than you would expect. It went from being a questionable procedure, to a difficult procedure, to an impossible and dangerous procedure.”

“Consider the newer high-strength steels now incorporated in many newer vehicles,” Pam Pierson points out. “They cannot tolerate the kind of heat from welding which is required in a clipping procedure. It weakens the steel, and any subsequent collision could prove to be fatal. You’ve seen news stories where vehicles actually split into two halves upon impact? I would bet they were previously clipped.”

“It’s bad for everybody,” Mark Pierson says. “Why would you want to be involved in that? It’s bad for the shop, it’s bad for the consumer, and it’s bad for the insurer. There’s no way to restore the integrity of the vehicle with a sectioning. All the safety systems would be compromised. You will not find a manufacturer that endorses that procedure.”

“What it comes down to is this,” says I-CAR technical director Jason Bartanen: “I-CAR has always recommended following the vehicle maker’s recommendation for the repair of collision-damaged vehicles. Because there are some vehicle makers that warn against full-body sectioning, that would be the ‘I-CAR recommendation’ for those vehicles. If there are no recommendations from the vehicle maker for, or against, this type of repair, the decision to consider this type of repair would be a subjective business decision that should be agreed upon by all parties involved,” he says.

“As far as the impact on other insurers and/or facilities, as a technical training organization, I-CAR is not in a position to offer a prediction on that. Currently, I am not aware of any other recommendations from insurers other than State Farm,” Bartanen says.

“The OEMs are pretty universal in saying it should not be done,” says Ken Klein, owner of Consumers’ Auto Detective, a re-inspection service and shop based in Elgin, Ill. “I don’t know how it can be physically done” and result in a suitable repair.

Klein, who specializes in diminished value consumer fraud cases, takes sharp issue with the notion that a typical vehicle owner is capable of making a properly informed decision on going forward with a full rear-body sectioning. “The insurance companies are leaving the door open. People don’t really know how their car is fixed. They’re not experts on car repair.”

Usually what happens, according to Klein, is that an owner with a sectioned car will ultimately arrange to have it traded-in and subsequently sold to an unsuspecting buyer. “People don’t want to fight with their insurance company or the body shop, so they will trade the car off and be done with it. They’re not going to have their families driving around in an unsafe vehicle. The poor guy who buys it is stuck with a lemon,” he says.

“We don’t know all the issues that are going on with these cars,” Klein continues. “A lot of this information is being buried. When a car gets wrecked the information goes to the insurance company.” Klein gets involved when a full rear-body sectioned car’s new owner feels cheated upon discovering that such a repair has been done and decides to take action against the seller.

As with the Piersons, he urges body shops to abandon this technique regardless of what an insurer may approve. “They’re not saying, ‘That’s not a good thing to do,’ so we know they’re still doing them.”

“It’s a repair procedure that’s not performed very often,” says State Farm in-house estimating consultant George Avery. “We haven’t had any complaints. The decision was based on the type of specialty metals” used in today’s cars. “As they become more complicated it may have an effect on that type of repair. They’re starting to sandwich these metals where you can’t see,” he explains.

“We looked at it and elected to make a change. Information was gathered and we’ve been looking at it for a while. You’ll no longer see it on staff estimates,” Avery says.

“If a customer prefers to have that done and authorizes the repair…we’ll pay accordingly. It’s a current repair procedure that some repairers are doing. All the change was that we stopped sourcing it on our staff estimates. If a repairer says, ‘I’m not doing that,’ we wouldn’t do it,” he notes.

“It boils down to we don’t own the car and we don’t repair the car,” says Avery. “We have a contract with our customer to pay for the repairs.”

For more information, Bartanen suggests reviewing a still-applicable I-CAR article on the topic by clicking here.