Good morning Folks, sorry for the delay getting this out today!
As of March 1st, 2021 the new accreditation agreement entitled the Safe & Quality Auto Repair Program (SQARP) commences. If you do not qualify for this new agreement you will be relegated to the non-accredited door rate which I believe is roughly half of our current door rate.
Some of you are concerned about getting I-CAR Gold Class and if you were at our SAAR Fall Conference you would have heard that you can still qualify for the SQARP accreditation if you have and OEM certification like Certified Collision Care which does not require I-CAR Gold Class. That’s the good news. The bad news is that time is running out. Leanne Jefferies the Canadian VP of Certified Collision Care send me this email last week:
I am reaching out to you regarding my concerns that many shops in Saskatchewan are leaving their certification with CCC to the last minute, and may end up disappointed. We are working hard to assist shops in Saskatchewan to become certified quickly, to help them qualify for the SGI Tools & Training incentive of $15k. Today, we have sent out the message below to the shops in Saskatchewan, that we have contact information for. This does not represent all shops in the province. We are finding a lot of shops that are contacting us, believe that once they have completed the training requirements and have ordered the last pieces of required equipment, that certification just takes a day or two. This is not correct, as it takes several weeks to get their Certified Collision Care certification completed. Shops that are pursing the SGI incentive should be aware that SGI will only be paying the $15k to CERTIFIED shops – not shops that have just enrolled in our program. For any shops that are working towards CCC – we recommend they enroll now, even if they don’t have everything in place. They can work on completing the process in advance, and when the last items are complete, we can submit for audit and approval.
I know your memberships covers most of Saskatchewan, so I am hoping you can help to share this message/information. If a shop is not enrolled in JANUARY, it is unlikely they will complete certification in time. We are enrolling several shops per day from the province so even with the increased capacity we have put in place, it may become difficult to meet demand. We will do our best to accommodate every shop that wants to be certified.
Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide! The best way for a shop to get in touch with us, is to click on APPLY NOW from any page on the website www.certifiedcollisioncare.ca.
Who Pays for What?
About 2 in 5 shops itemizing diagnostic time separately from scanning time,
according to ‘Who Pays for What?’ survey; latest survey opens now
More than one-third of shops (39%) itemize on invoices the diagnostic labor time they spend researching diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) apart from the charge for the vehicle scan itself, according to just-released results from a “Who Pays for What?” survey.
Among the more than 500 shops responding to the survey’s new questions related to diagnostic time, about half acknowledged never having included an itemized charge for diagnostic time. But among those that do, about 3 in 10 (29%) say they are paid “always” or “most of the time” for the charge by the largest eight auto insurers, and the majority (55%) say they are paid at least “some of the time.”
Mike Anderson of Collision Advice, which conducts the “Who Pays” surveys in conjunction with CRASH Network, believes those numbers will grow because diagnostic time is becoming an increasingly significant portion of collision repair work.
“I know first-hand how much time it takes to research and troubleshoot DTCs,” Anderson said. “Diagnostic labor time should really be separated from the scan labor time because there are just too many variables involved. Just as judgement times vary based on the size and location of the damage and the substrate involved, diagnostic time varies as well. Isn’t the time it takes to research one diagnostic trouble code different from researching five? And it’s not just looking up the code. You also have to navigate the OEM repair flowchart to determine what the most probable cause is. If there are several possible causes, it might be the first one you try, or the last one. All this takes time.”
The latest quarterly “Who Pays for What?” survey is now open through the month of January. It focuses on “not-included” refinish labor operations. Shops can take the survey here.
Survey participants receive a free report with complete survey findings along with analysis and resources to help shops better understand and use the information presented.
Anderson said the survey, which will take about 15-20 minutes, can be completed by anyone in a shop familiar with the shop’s billing practices and the payment practices of at least some of the largest national insurers. Each shop’s individual responses are held in the strictest confidence; only aggregated data is released.
For a while now we were having a challenge with the Saskatchewan Insurance Act and we could not offer the ARA Group Insurance option to our SAAR members. I just heard from them this past week that everything is now a go.
The ARA offering is unique in that it is essentially a not-for-profit program that provides a better value with lower premiums and higher payouts to shops affiliated with this program. The response I have gotten from our members already on this program has been very positive.
Group insurance is a great benefit to your staff and this program allows any shop no matter how many staff you have to participate and get the benefit of being included with shops in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia as if we were all one shop!
For more information contactK.M. Campbell Financial Services
It all starts with great advice!
Phone:(306) 649-4000
Email: ken.campbell@sunlife.com
Address:475 – 1st Avenue N.,
Saskatoon SK S7K 1X5
Good morning SGI body shops!
Just wanted to re-send out an updated copy of a technical bulletin that Tom B had shared for us earlier last summer on his “Did you Know?” update. Though we have great success with removing old adhesive with the Blue Bear product, please note that THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS to this process…. when nameplates have added “painted inserts” or “decals” applied to the nameplate. Examples would be “X31”, “Z71” (new style), Nissan badge, VW “TSI” …. these types of nameplates have colored areas, often using either a paint or a decal, and are at risk to being damaged during the soaking process. We recommend to either only put enough Blue Bear in the container to just contact the old adhesive, or to “manually” remove the old adhesive (razor blade, eraser wheel, etc.). Please also note that nameplates that are degraded due to age (chrome is starting to peel), these also should not be completely soaked as there is risk to weakening the bond of the remaining chrome. Also please note that this does not currently apply to the satin black nameplates (RAM 1500 sport for example), as we have not seen any damage to those.
If any shops have any experiences to add, please let us know!
Please share with anyone in the shop that would benefit from this info!
Thank you Everyone, and I hope you all have a great week!
Dan & Jaiden
One of our members alerted me to the fact that there is an issue with non-CAPA Certified Parts showing up on a number of SGI Mitchell Estimates. At this point we are not sure who is responsible for allowing this to happen, but I just wanted to give you all a head’s up to be on the lookout for non CAPA parts on your estimates. Len Nargang is working on the problem and he has stated
“Before you go ahead and just convert the A/M parts to new, I would call someone in the appraisal area for approval. As I mentioned in my previous e-mail, there will be parts that are not structural or parts that are not listed as having to be CAPA approved items that will be in the data base and will have to remain as an A/M part. The reason I ask that you get prior approval, is so that you get proper direction on how to deal with the situation at hand and then it won’t affect your KPI’s.”
The body shop that discovered this issue also mentioned that some of the aftermarket parts were actually available as CAPA Certified so don’t just assume you can buy OEM parts.
Hopefully, this situation gets rectified sooner rather than later.
TEMPORARY REPAIRS
I got a call from a shop that had to do temporary repairs to secure an engine splash shield on the underside of a customer’s vehicle. SGI did not want to pay for these temporary repairs because he did not contact the adjuster and get the go ahead. We all know how easy it is to get a hold of an adjuster don’t we? In any case we contacted Lyle Andrusiak and he supplied the following reply:
Thanks for your message regarding Temporary Repairs. You bring up a very good question and it allows us to identify a gap in our Appraisal Policy Manual to which we will make the necessary revisions. The current manual does not go into any detail regarding temporary repairs except that the repair firm must get SGI authorization before proceeding. Traditionally, the Adjuster would authorize the request for temporary repairs, however, these inquiries are typically windshield claims from the insured during hail season. We discussed this issue internally and it makes sense for the repair firms to contact the Appraisal support area where there is a need for temporary repairs as part of a collision. We will update our policy manual accordingly (it will also be included in the Phase 5 Manually and training that will be coming out shortly).
Until we get a chance to update our policy, if you run into this issue again, please contact either Appraisal Support proxy email account:
- Saskatoon – stoonappraisal@sgi.sk.ca
- Regina – RCCCappraisalsupport@sgi.sk.ca
Alternatively, any one of our Senior Appraisers for Operations and Image Desk (Kevin Bohaychuk, Birch Hansen, Scott Stroheber) could also help the shop out.
Additionally, for some further clarification, as per page 70 of our Appraisal Policy Manual, the use of the Appraisal Exceptions email is for instances where there is questionable damage, and it is not intended for the approval/review of appraisal procedures:
I hope this helps and thanks again for raising the question. It’s great to identify instances where further clarification in our policies and procedures are needed and we appreciate you reaching out.
| Many of the shops that switched to the ARA in the past year and half are experiencing their first renewal as of January 1, and I can honestly say, I think they were all pleasantly surprised. The average renewal we saw with the ARA was about 1.5%. For those of you with current benefits in place you know that a renewal that low is not something you would usually see. With Covid-19 causing Disability cases to skyrocket, outside of the ARA we are seeing our plans increase an average of 30%. It has been almost 2 years since we partnered with the ARA, we have built a strong relationship and they have earned our trust. They have proven that they have a solid plan, great customer service and lower rates when compared to a standard plan. We are now working on new quotes for the New Year. Contact us to see how we can help you save money on your benefits plan this year and in the future. Leslie DeBoice leslie.deboice@sunlife.com 306-649-4000 x. 111 Lee Campbell lee.campbell@sunlife.com 306-649-4000 x. 104 |
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