By: Dan Risley, Vice President, Market Solutions
Documenting the damage on a vehicle isn't a new concept. Repairers and insurers have been taking photos of all four corners of the car and the primary damage since the days of Polaroid cameras.
Properly documenting the repair of the vehicle, however, has continued to evolve as vehicle complexity grows. OEM repair procedures, high strength and advanced substrates, and the rapid growth of ADAS features make repair documentation more critical than ever in a safe and complete repair.
Documenting the damage and the repair are both critical, and it’s hard to prioritize one over the other, but capturing any ADAS-related work should be high on your priority list. Today's consumers are buying vehicles based on their ADAS features; they rely and depend on things like blind spot monitoring, lane keep assistance, and advanced emergency braking (AEB). (Reminder: AEB is nearly standard on all newer model vehicles). After a collision, it’s obviously important to repair and calibrate these features, but also to document the work. Failure to document this work could expose your shop to potential future liability.
Our Q3 2024 Crash Course data indicates that 85% of DRP claims have at least one scan on the estimate and 28% have at least one calibration. These rates continue to increase, and we expect the number of calibrations to grow exponentially in the coming years as the industry does a better job of identifying what additional operation(s) are required on each repair. And how do you show you did a calibration or scan on a vehicle? You guessed it, documentation.
It is not uncommon for a shop to get an email or go to a portal to download pre- and post-repair scan results and completed calibrations. As a result, estimators and managers spend a lot of administrative time manually attaching images and documents to workfiles in CCC ONE®. This is not only time-consuming but also places a burden on your staff to remember to do this on every repair order.
The good news is if you are using one of CCC's four integration partners –– Opus IVS, asTech/Repairify, AirPro, or Elitek –– this can be a lot easier. Log into cccone.com, go to Settings, select "Scan Devices," choose your partner, review the agreement, click "OK" and you're all set. There is absolutely no cost to do this, and once you do, your scan and calibration reports are automatically sent into CCC ONE in the "Attachments" tab. You will no longer need to remember to wait for an email or go to a portal or take a photo of the scan/calibration results and then upload it to the workfile. It happens seamlessly - reducing administrative time and concerns about proper documentation.
And another thing - how often is your team been contacted by an insurance carrier requesting documentation to show that a scan or calibration was completed? As these requests continue to increase, your team is likely spending more time on calls or responding to emails to provide the requested information. Shops can now enable sharing of scan and calibration reports with carriers. You can enable sharing by carrier, facilitating a seamless electronic communication with your insurance partners and saving precious time. It's easy to do and there is no cost to take advantage of this feature.
We're committed to helping you improve your efficiency and reduce the number of manual tasks that take unnecessary time. I encourage you to take the two minutes to activate these two features and immediately realize the benefit of time saved, including a reduction in calls, emails and audits for supporting documentation. It's just another way that working from a single CCC platform can add value for you and your team.
