No one wants to be involved in an accident… but they happen.  What you know BEFORE that happens, can dramatically affect what to do after an accident.  Here are a host of informational videos that we have assembled that will help you know exactly what to do after an accident.

What is the role of an insurance adjuster?

You have probably been programmed by great marketing campaigns to believe that you have an insurance company that is like a good neighbor, or that you’re in good hands. You might think that saving 15% or more in 15 minutes is a good thing.  But before you actually have an insurance adjuster come out to estimate the damages and repair for your car, you should probably hear what Joshua Green, former adjuster for GEICO, has to say about what his job was.

What to expect when you need a body shop

This video helps you know what to look for when trying to find a body shop that has your best interest in mind.

Certification is more than a plaque on the wall

Before you take your car to any body shop, you may want to dive in a little deeper about the shop’s certifications. And this video will help you know what to do after an accident and the right questions to ask before making any decisions.

How long will it take to repair my car?

This is literally one of the most-asked questions that we ever receive – and also one of the most difficult to answer.  In this video – we not only tell you why it’s so complicated to answer – but then we give you some ideas on how to estimate repair time anyway.

The Dept of Insurance offers consumers free tools

Did you know that you can start your hunt for auto insurance right on your own state’s dept. of Insurance website? At least we can in Colorado.  You’ll be surprised at what Rob and Eric found as they went searching for the best policies.

How to choose the right shop

At the end of the day, you need to know that you have a choice of which shop you want to repair your vehicle. Despite all the downward pressure from the insurance companies to do business with one of their “preferred” (ie. PARTNER) body shops – YOU get to choose who takes care of you and your family. We’ll show you what to look for when choosing a shop that won’t cut corners on your family’s safety.

Whose Insurance Should You Go Through?

When someone else hits you, you have a choice of whose insurance company you want to use for the repair. There are pros and cons on both sides, and Rob and Eric talk it through for you.

It’s always a surprise when you are involved in an accident. (That’s why we call them “accidents”). But if you’re not careful, the accident could end up being just the first of many surprises… and sometimes, the surprises come at the hands of the very places you expect to be looking out for your best interests. We start this series, called Bodyshop Surprises, to hopefully educate you on the many areas of potential surprise – after an accident.

Take the case of the owner of a new model Honda. After the accident that damaged his family vehicle’s front end, he took it to the body shop that his insurance agency “recommended”. It should also be mentioned that the owner of this vehicle is also the owner of his own agency for the same insurance company. He never gave it a second thought when choosing to take his car to the shop that  is preferred by his company. After all… he represents the brand and supports their recommendations. And that was the beginning of this family’s nightmare bodyshop surprises.

How do you know if your vehicle has really been repaired?

One of the most important things we do for our guests here at Nylund’s is educate them. We explain the process of their repair before, during and after. That wasn’t the case for the man in this story.

The owner of this brand new Honda took his vehicle to the shop that his insurance company “recommended”. (That was his first mistake.) They did what many DRP* body shops do: they cut corners, didn’t read or disregarded OEM procedures, and used inferior aftermarket parts – all in the name of saving their insurance partner money.

When he got his car back, it “LOOKED” as if it had been repaired.  It looked like it was new.  It looked right.  It wasn’t.

Just moments after he picked up his car and jumped on the highway heading home, the owner noticed a very loud rattle coming from the second row seating INSIDE THE CABIN. Below is a video that was recorded the same day the vehicle was delivered. You can clearly see and hear the rattle of the second row seat, and even more disturbing is what that seat is actually holding.  Can you imagine if his child were in that seat? The image of that haunts us to this day.

The rattle came from the fact that even though the body shop declared that it had completely repaired the vehicle, so many of the proper procedures were completely ignored or overlooked.  On top of that, the technicians involved actively attempted to hide the fact that they disregarded proper repairs by using bonding solution to imitate welds, and then painting over it to hide the facts. The level of disregard for the owner’s safety surprised even us, and we see a lot of this kind of thing.

Had the body shop in question cared even a little for what a proper repair should look like, they would have measured the frame rails at the very beginning, and realized that the frame was bent (causing the shaking and rattling when being driven).  They would have used OEM parts that fit properly instead of aftermarket parts that don’t line up. Instead, it appears that they cut every corner – intentionally – to align with their insurance partner’s view of how inexpensive the repair could be done.  The loser in this whole situation: the vehicle owner.

We encourage our readers to watch the entire video above, and educate themselves on just one of the bodyshop surprises we’ve shared with our guests. Know what to look for, and the proper questions to ask any bodyshop you allow to repair your vehicle. And of course, like always, if you have any questions at all about a repair that you have had done, or are considering… please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re happy to offer any suggestions or referrals necessary.

*DRP = Direct Repair Partnership. This is a program offered by insurers to incentivize body shops to join and save the insurance companies money. The basic arrangement in this partnership is this: the insurer promises to send the body shop more business, provided the shop doesn’t fight the insurer about the repair plan using substandard aftermarket, used or salvaged parts. As long as the body shop continues to perform repairs the way the insurer wants, they are allowed to remain on the program, and get more referrals from the insurer.  When an insurer offers their claimants a list of “recommended” shops – these are ALWAYS their DRP partners.  IMPORTANT NOTE: NOT ALL BODY SHOPS are in a DRP relationship with insurers. Our best advice is to find a shop that has NO PARTNERSHIPS with insurers.

What Exactly Are “Insurance Prevailing Rates”?

Who determines ‘insurance prevailing rates’, and why should it matter?

We see it every day. Insurance companies, whose only mission in life is to deny full payment for proper repairs, cite ‘prevailing rates’ as their main reason for not paying. They blame shift from themselves to the independent body shops, citing that prevailing rates (sometimes referred to as ‘reasonable and customary’) for a certain geographic region prevent them from paying beyond a certain threshold.

This begs the question, “who sets that threshold”? The insurance companies would have you believe that it’s the body shops themselves that set “prevailing rates”… but what they don’t tell you is that most of the body shops are in direct partnership relationships (DRP) with the insurers. As a result of those partnerships, insurers write estimates for the amount of money THEY think should be paid, and their partner body shops are encouraged not to contest those prices if they want to remain on the partnership program.

Insurers are not the experts on repairing vehicles. How is it that they get to determine the prevailing rates? Either you have a policy to correctly repair your vehicle or you don’t. Just because the DRP shop down the street doesn’t perform a certain proper procedure (per manufacturer requirements), doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

Even the manufacturers caution you about taking your vehicle to a DRP shop. Take, for example, Lexus’ position:

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE YOUR REPAIR SHOP

‘Insurance prevailing rates’ means average. Made up of low, medium and high quality repairs.  It’s an AVERAGE. If you want to have your vehicle repaired to an average level – there are plenty of places to take it. If you want to have your vehicle repaired to an exceptional level – average won’t suffice – and neither will prevailing rates. 

Insurance companies will say that shops that perform repairs to manufacturer standards are more expensive. We say that they are more thorough.

Even so, there are several insurance companies that agree with proper repair plans. Prevailing rates never enter into the conversation. This expedites the repair, and serves you, the guest and your best interests.  Bottom line: just as you don’t want an average repair… you shouldn’t want an average insurance company.

Look, there will always be someone out there who save you 15% or more on your monthly premiums. But when you need them the most, it will cost you far more than your 15% savings to get your car fixed properly.  Cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean better, and in most cases, it means lower quality, or ‘average’.

If the shop down the street either doesn’t perform a proper or compete repair – or charge for it – that becomes the new insurance prevailing rates. So the question is – is the correct repair getting done – and if it is – is it being done via the cheapest parts and labor possible? Or is it being done to the the specifications outlined by the manufacturer? Both solutions cannot occupy the same space. It’s one or the other.

When the insurance company says, “these are the prevailing rates” – how do you know? They don’t have to prove it. Is it fact, or just an opinion? Or is it just their way of saying, “that’s all we’re willing to pay.”? Their job is to make you whole after a loss. Which usually turns out to be their interpretation of what makes you whole – not necessarily what actually makes you whole. Cosmetics don’t equate to structural integrity.

Increasingly, because the insurers are using these tactics, guests are required to pay out of pocket over and above their deductibles to cover the expense of performing the proper repairs.

In the end, make sure you’re using a shop that has your best interest at heart.  And it’s safe to say that shops that are in partnership with insurers have to please the insurer before they care for you. The insurer is their customer – not you. Insurance prevailing rates shouldn’t have a seat at the table when what’s most important is the proper repair with original manufacturer’s parts. Choose both your insurer and your repairer wisely – your life may rest in the balance.

Should a brand new 2020 Subaru Outback be totaled or repaired after an accident? Before you fire off a knee-jerk response, let’s take a look at an actual situation that came through our doors recently. In this article, we’ll discuss what goes into deciding whether a vehicle should be totaled or not, who makes that ultimate decision, and what’s at stake if they get it wrong.

The 2020 Subaru Outback that came to us was involved in a head-on collision angled off of the driver’s side.  It was delivered via tow truck from the impound/auction lot. Right off the top, this raises red flags for us. We are interested in how and why the car was taken to auction, and when the insurance company wrote the original estimate to REPAIR it. We believe that the car was taken to auction first, and that is where the insurance adjuster wrote the estimate.

A car company designing vehicles to save lives insured by an insurance company designed to save money…

When the insurance company decided to repair, rather than total this vehicle, the owner of the vehicle chose to bring it to us. After the most cursory inspection, it was obvious to us that the cost of repair would exceed the value of the car and that this would be a total loss. We disassembled the vehicle and performed a complete inspection. We submitted our estimate and in the end, the insurance company agreed with us that the car was a total loss.

The body shop isn’t the one who decides whether a vehicle is to be totaled or repaired. That is up to the insurer. They must weigh the expense of repair against the value of the car. The problem comes into play when the repair is written for the cheapest parts that don’t have documented safety ratings – a common practice for most insurance companies. However, if the body shop is in a partnership with the insurer – they may also pressure you to go through with a repair, even when it should be totaled. Why would they do something like that? Simply put, it’s much more profitable for them to perform a repair – even the wrong repair – than to total a vehicle. And in today’s economic climate, many shops are taking anything they can get just to keep their doors open.

This practice bypasses the PROPER REPAIR in the name of saving money for the insurance company and profiting the body shop. And because the proper repair isn’t performed, it puts at risk the safety of the vehicle’s owner, his or her family, and everyone on the road that the vehicle in question ever comes near. Cheap parts can, and do fail. Repeat accidents can and do happen. A proper repair maintains the integrity of the vehicle the way the manufacturer original designed it.

Only one proper way to repair vehicles

Here at Nylund’s we are committed to repairing vehicles only one way: the right way. In order to do that, we always pull the manufacturer’s repair plan – and we always use 100% original equipment manufacturer’s parts.  And sometimes, that costs a little more than what insurance companies want to pay. But the way we see it, your life and the lives of others is more valuable than cutting corners on the proper repair to save the insurance companies money. And if that means that the expense of the proper repair outweighs the value of the vehicle, then we feel that totaling the car is the right thing to do, regardless of how new it may be.

On this 2020 Subaru Outback, we wrote our estimate for a proper repair. And, fortunately, the insurance company came around to agree with us that the expense of the repair outweighed the value of the vehicle.  It doesn’t always happen that way.

The moral of this story is this: don’t let an insurance company or even a body shop bully you into performing a substandard repair just because they will make more money doing so. If a shop is unwilling to stand up for the proper repair of your vehicle, you have the right to choose a shop that will. And if performing the proper repair ends up costing more than the value of the vehicle – you (and everyone around you) benefit from removing an unsafe car from the road.

If you ever have any question about an insurance company or body shop pressuring you to agree to a repair with aftermarket or salvaged parts – regardless of the age of your vehicle – feel free to contact us directly. Even if we don’t perform the repair… your safety and that of others on the road matters to us more than any amount of money.

We’ve put together an introduction to Nylund’s Collision Center for those people who have been involved in an automobile accident, and who need to know what to expect when they consider bringing their car to us for repair. Our process is very noticeably different from every other shop in the Denver metro area, and it starts and ends with you. To us, you are not a ‘potential customer’… you are our guest.

From the moment you decide to check us out, we want you to know that we’ve been preparing for your arrival. You will be warmly welcomed by our office staff, and it’s our pleasure to inspect your vehicle and prepare an estimate while you wait in our beautifully appointed guest area. Would you like something to drink? Coffee and ice cold water are always on demand.

Once we’ve inspected your vehicle, our professional estimators will explain everything we have discovered in language that is meaningful to you. We won’t bog you down with automotive industry jargon. If you’re interested in meeting the people who will be working on your vehicle, we’re more than happy to take you on a full tour of our shop. You’ll meet the painters, the body technicians and the people who will lovingly disassemble and reassemble your vehicle.

From start to finish, you will be kept in the loop as your vehicle moves through the repair process. Our entire team wants you to feel comfortable and confident in your decision to bring your car to the only collision center in the entire Denver metro area to win “Best Body Shop” year after year since 2011 in the Denver A-List competition. And at any time, if you have any questions, contact us directly – we’ll take great care of you!

And when your vehicle repair is completed, you will be wowed once again as we deliver it on our showroom floor, with a sign welcoming you back to the beautiful car you had before the accident. At Nylund’s Collision Center, if it isn’t perfect… it isn’t leaving.  That is our promise to you – our guest!