With increases in both the average number of labor hours per claim, and the average number of parts replaced per claim, it is clear that vehicle complexity is playing a part in driving up overall cycle time (see Figure 2, below). The average number of replaced parts and average labor hours per claim have all increased, supplement frequency has increased, and not surprisingly repair costs have gone up as well.

A comparison of the repair time by vehicle age helps underscore how newer non-driveable vehicles have repair cycle times that dramatically exceed those of the older models, while the difference among vehicle age groups for driveable repairs differs very little (see Figure 3, below).

The main drivers for this can be seen when comparing repair cycle time as well as repair cost, average number of parts replaced per repair, and average labor hours in Figure 4.

While the difference in repair cost for driveable vehicles aged current model year is 15% higher than for driveable vehicles aged 7-years plus, that same metric for non-driveable vehicles is over 90% higher, driven by over 15 more parts replaced per claim and 17 more labor hours per claim. Clearly newer vehicles are costing more to repair than ever before, but do so especially when the vehicle is much more heavily damaged. This is apparent in how the difference in each of these metrics has grown over the last three years alone; also suggesting that costs for newer car repairs will likely grow even further in the near future.

Perhaps the one bit of good news is that as more and more vehicles are equipped with advanced driver assistance systems such as frontal crash warning or avoidance, automatic emergency braking, and blind-spot detection, more of the high dollar high impact non-driveable crashes may be avoided.

Unfortunately, as repair costs rise, efficiency and the ability to estimate when the car will be available for pickup, not surprisingly, fall (see Figure 5). As repairers look to load balance among locations and specialize work, understanding the impacts to cycle time and productivity will become increasingly important. A shop handling more new model year repairs or more non-driveable repairs could see significantly different results; factoring these differences in repair mix and performance assessment going forward will be increasingly important.

Susanna Gotsch is director of analytics and product management at CCC Information Services Inc. She previously served as CCC's lead analyst, and authored the company's Crash Course Report series. She can be reached via email at [email protected], or on Twitter @ccc_susanna.

See also:

Next generation hyperscale expectations

The expanding role of telematics