Diagnostics Systems Key to Proper and Safe Repairs for Fountain Valley Body Shop
Since opening his Fountain Valley body shop over 40 years ago, owner Dave March has had a front row seat witnessing the evolution of the collision repair industry. In 1974 when his shop opened, only one automobile manufacturer offered airbags, and the NHTSA was still five years away from crash-testing popular cars to encourage manufacturers to improve the safety of their vehicles.
January 2018 Used Vehicle Market Conditions
Wholesale used vehicle prices started the year in the pattern that characterized much of 2017 in the months prior to hurricane season. Namely, car prices tended to fall while truck prices provided a boost to average wholesale values. In January, car prices continued to show year-over-year price declines, while truck prices did the opposite, but that situation is moving towards parity, as indicated by strong month-over-month increases in car prices.
Average Length of Rental for Repairable Vehicles: Q4 2017
Average Length of Rental (LOR) for Q4 2017 landed at 12.4 days in the United States, a decrease of .1 days compared to Q4 2016. This produced a final LOR for Calendar 2017 of 12.04 days, up slightly from 11.98 in 2016. Once again, there was very little consistency between regions and states, suggesting that the quarterly result for the U.S. is not reflective of a genuine national trend.
Total Loss: Q4 2017
Total loss data for both vehicle age and actual cash value of total loss vehicles processed through Mitchell servers.
Mitchell Collision Repair Industry Data: Q4 2017
The initial average appraisal value, calculated by combining data from all first and third-party repairable vehicle appraisals uploaded through Mitchell systems in Q4 2017, was $3,151. Continued development suggests a final Q4 2017 average appraisal value of $3,184, which represents an increase of $67 compared to the same quarter last year.
Canadian Collision Summary: Q4 2017
The average gross initial appraisal value, calculated by combining data from all first and third party repairable vehicle appraisals uploaded through Mitchell Canadian systems in Q4 2017, was $4,184, a $43 increase from Q4 2016. Factoring for development yields an anticipated increase to $4,229.
Insurers Lead in AI Investment
In a recent study of 13 different verticals, the insurance industry invested more on artificial intelligence (AI) than any other industry—on average, $124 million per company surveyed. Of the 54 insurance companies that participated, about half were in North America, and about half were in the property and casualty industry. While the greatest areas of investment were security and customer service, investments were made across multiple business functions, including everything from human resources to sales.