Explain to me how body shops “work” these days

Wait until they tell you how long before they can get to actually doing the repair! I am dealing with this now as well..

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So my husband “no pics” was rear ended a couple days ago

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bet

it all comes down to money. insurance is only going to pay for they feel like is necessary probably because a lot of body shops got greedy and started charging for irrelevant things and insurance was losing their arse off

IDK but would probably just take the guy for his word and hand over the insurance paperwork and see what he says


Is this like Doctors being "in network" w/ your health insurance co.?

It’s because the shop you chose is probably part of your carriers repair program. Each carrier has agreed pricing with the shop (normally for the labor rates).

They want your claim number because they are going to handle directly with your carrier. Their estimate will be at your carriers agreed rates. If they wrote an estimate for your now it would probably be at the higher shop rates and would not be valid for your carrier.

Insurance companies also don’t let you shop around. They pay off their approved estimate or the agreed shop estimate.

Basically the shop told you that you are wasting their time and your time until you give them the claim/carrier info.

My buddy owns a body shop, he'll turn down jobs if they aren't insurance. He can't fully know the damage until he starts tearing the car apart, and people are unwilling to pay for repairs that aren't quoted upfront. Insurance will.

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Upon arrival they asked if it was an insurance claim to which I replied yes. Once I gave that information I was told that they couldn’t quote the repair job that they will need to see the paperwork and claim number the insurance gave me and they can take it from there.

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The days of a body shop owner walking out and giving a quick 15 minute estimate are long gone even with small collisions. Estimates now take hours to compute using Mitchell/CCC estimating software.

The insurance estimate gives them a baseline to start with. With modern cars, there are too many very expensive electronics, sensors, etc. to just look at a car and guess. Additional damage is found almost every time once the body tech starts taking the car apart. Many times, the body shop will have to do a supplement to get additional money.

My wife's car has been in a body shop for 2 months due to hail damage. It's been a fricking nightmare.

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Can someone explain this to a lady? I feel like I’m dealing with a car salesman.

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well because you are, and they are 100% worse then shady used car salesmen

you said the magic word to make the cash register ring when you said insurance claim.

right then and there something they might have charged you $3500 to fix, turned into a $5000 repair.

try contacting them again and say its not going to be an insurance claim so just give you a quote. if they wont do that, then tell them you will make arrangement to have it removed from their parking lot.

such as with most things in life, one wrong word can send you down the wrong path.

is this something you will pay for or is it an insurance claim? if its an insurance claim then they wont even want to talk to you about it since its just between them and insurance company, and the insurance company often gets to decide who fixes it for you.

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My wife's car has been in a body shop for 2 months due to hail damage. It's been a fricking nightmare.

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Hail damage should be a paint only repair and should be a quick turnaround in any shop. Most shop delays I'm seeing are due to parts availability. I know parts guys who spend all day online shopping small town dealerships all over the country looking for simple parts.