Five tips for handling damage during hail season

Hail can fall any time of the year, but according to National Weather Service statistics, May is the most common month in southeast Wisconsin for hail that's pea-sized or larger. It was exactly a year ago that dozens of vehicles were at River City Auto Body with damage from quarter-sized hail that fell late morning on Saturday May, 7… exactly when there were a lot of cars out and about on family errands.

Hail damage is cosmetic. Your car still runs. But you have to look at the pockmarks and dents every time you're in your vehicle. Unrepaired cosmetic damage from hail is going to lower the resale value of your vehicle, or will cost you when your lease ends.

Here's how to handle hail damage:

1) If you're driving, safely reduce your speed. A pea-sized hailstone can fall at as much as 20 mph on a parked car. If you’re traveling at 65 mph in a head wind, the velocity of that little dent maker is more than tripled. And you'll hit more of them by covering distance.

2) If possible, get under an overpass in the breakdown lane with your hazards on until the storm passes. Hail episodes seldom last more than five minutes in a location.

3) If you have hail damage, don't delay in calling River City Auto Body and your insurer. Most dents are small. They can, however, compromise the paint's ability to prevent corrosion or rust on the underlying metal the longer the dents go unrepaired.

4) Hail damaged sheet metal may need to be hammered and painted. For lightly damaged surfaces, trained technicians may recommend paintless dent removal (PDR), which involves using tools on the underside of a damaged panel. Either process takes time… PDR takes less time, but usually in a hail event, a repair facility has several cars with the same damage awaiting repair.

5) Check the repair thoroughly under daylight and fluorescent light from a few angles. If it's not done to your satisfaction, remember it is YOUR car, not the insurer's.

 

 Photo by Andrei Seleznev, used with permission.

Auto insurance steering isn't us vs. them, it's about you

Earlier in the River City Auto Body article archive, we shared two 'myth-buster' articles on auto insurers steering claim repairs to a shop of the insurer's choosing. They can't require you to go anywhere for your repair: It's your vehicle. Yet they may attempt to sway your decision by suggesting a collision repair shop, and that's legal – mostly.

We work with a lot of insurers. They're an important part of protecting your vehicle investment and your peace of mind. Not to mention your wallet. River City Auto Body recognizes the valuable role your insurer plays in your life, and how they can make or break our business. Insurers work with the same auto repair shops every day. And since you, as a driver, aren't likely to have that much experience with getting collision damage repaired quickly or cost-effectively, you probably appreciate any effort the insurer makes to help you through the crisis.

The suggestions they make are in that spirit: The spirit of helping you. However, the insurance industry is, as a business, committed to cost savings. Those two concepts can be contradictory. To put it another way, the insurer works for its shareholders or policy owners (in the case of a mutual company). River City Auto Body works for you.

Something to consider… A 2016 J.D. Power and Associates study indicates consumers are more apt to shop for a new carrier after they've had a claim, whether they're happy with the claim response or not. So, if the insurer possibly will lose you anyway, what would their incentive be to do anything but cut its repair costs?

That survey indicated you are more likely to stick with them after a claim when you rank highly your experience in these 10 areas:

— Answering all customer questions
— Managing expectations regarding the settlement
— Expressing genuine concern
— Avoiding negotiated settlements
— Providing flexible appraisal appointments
— Returning phone calls
— Sharing information between representatives
— Providing proactive updates
— Ensuring customer is at ease with claims process
— Giving customers a time line and meeting it

Who delivers that level of individualized, face-to-face service, the insurer? Or the shop doing your repair? When River City Auto Body does right by you, we're actually helping the insurer keep customers. Our commitment to your satisfaction with our work is how we ensure referrals and repeat customers.

 

 Photo by Dmitry Kalinovsky, used with permission.

Bring some clarity to warranty, guarantee and honesty

With more than three decades in the collision repair business, River City Auto Body witnessed more than a few similar business come and go over challenges involving those three words in the article title. Realistically, no one expects warranty and guarantee to mean the same thing. However, they're frequently used for the same principle: When something goes south, it gets fixed. Period.

Warranty and guarantee do mean the same thing from a legal standpoint. The Uniform Commercial Code, which has been adopted in some form in every state, protects consumers when it comes to promises made by a seller.

We simplify it here:

·         Pieces and parts are warrantied. This comes from the manufacturer. For example, who hasn't come across a product recall? Some piece or part fails or creates a safety-compromising situation. It's replaced. Done. A warranty is a form of a guarantee, and comes from the maker/manufacturer. You see them ranging from 30-days for consumer electronics to years for car systems to the rare Lifetime Warranty.

A bit about parts and the warranty. Remanufactured parts carry a tag or label shortened to 'reman.' Sometimes remans carry a warranty from the REmanufacturer which isn't necessarily the company that originally manufactured the part. That original maker is usually called the OEM, by the way, short for Original Equipment Manufacturer. ‘

This is where honesty comes in. River City Auto Body believes in using new, OEM parts whenever possible and fully discloses when the parts used in a repair aren’t. Even if you don't use us, please ask any repairer to give you that courtesy.  

·         Work is guaranteed. You can use the best parts, but what about the installation or assembly? When you find a business willing to put it on the line that their employees do work so well – even the intricacies of paint work – they'll guarantee the labor.

At any rate, as we mentioned last week, an insurer doesn’t warranty claim repairs because they don’t make the equipment, and they don’t do the labor. We guarantee our parts (new and used) and labor – even refinishing except for damage from acid rain or stone chips – for a year because WE CAN. The fit and finish of a job are too important to us to cut corners. As long as you own the vehicle, we guarantee our work for a year. No fine print. The fine-print mentality is another form of dishonesty.

   

 Photo by Val Thoermer, used with permission.

Auto repair mythbuster part II: The insurance co. said WHAT?

Last week, River City Auto Body introduced you to the topic of steering: When an insurance carrier ‘suggests’ you use a certain repair shop for your covered auto. It’s worth repeating: Your insurer may suggest, but cannot require, you have your car repaired at a specific auto repair shop. After an accident, you are under no obligation to take your vehicle to the shop of their choosing.  In order to help YOU stay in control, here are a six tactics you might hear from an agent or appraiser (neither of which are auto repair pros – they’re doing their jobs as employees of the insurer):

1.       "We can't give you a rental if you go to River City." If you have rental reimbursement on your policy, take advantage of it. If you are hit by someone else, they have to put you into a rental.

2.       "River City Auto Body won't agree with our appraiser." Shops that often ‘agree’ with appraisers are trying to remain friendly with the insurance companies. YOU are the customer.

3.       "They are not on our preferred list." ‘Preferred’ can mean the insurance company trusts the quality of the shop – and we’ve earned that status with many companies. Preferred also may mean the shop has signed an agreement to pre-negotiate your repairs by giving the insurer discounts, using inferior parts, and possibly not doing all necessary processes to repair your vehicle properly. In those cases, it sounds sketchy, and in fact the insurer is the customer, not you.

4.       "If you go to a non-preferred shop your repair will be delayed waiting for our adjuster to inspect the vehicle." Delays are a scare tactic. Most state insurance regulations require insurers to respond within a reasonable amount of time.

5.       "If you go to our shop we can pay them directly and it will be faster." It is your money, the check should be written to you!

The sixth one is an odd but common tactic: "We won't warranty the repair if you go there." Ask the insurer for a copy of said ‘warranty’ and ask who will do the re-repairs. Insurers don't actually repair anything. So they can’t do warranty repairs. More on repair warranties and River City Auto Body’s guarantee in next week’s article.

     

 Photo by Monkeybusiness, used with permission.