FROM SLOW TO GO GO GO/pdrtechgear article
Well better late than never August 2007 has been a very welcome month to fellow PDR techs across to U.S and Canada.
With the activity seen this should keep most well networked Technicians working untill the end of the year likley into 2008.
This season started very light with little hail damage Cat losses to go to IE: FT WORTH ,ST CLOUD MN, those of you on the road all year such as most of our staff saw swarms of competition for such loss areas, and wittnessed deep discount work with heavy motivation by larger firms to SAVE PEOPLES DEDUCTIBLES, REPLACE GLASS FOR FREE, MIRRORS ECT.
The practice of Deductible discounting can get your bays full no argument about that, but at what residual cost to You as a Technician puting long days in for discounted salarys, to You as an Owner creating a discounted work Environment starting a cycle of production strain trade wide.
Forceing the industrie to make up what You, We used to have on the estimate to begin with.
Example 10 cars @ $500.00 discount = $5000.00 lost production=production strain,
Example 10 cars @ 1000.00 discount $10,000.00 in priduction strain.
Most well run PDR Operations can do 60 -100 cars in a good Cat loss.
The effect of these type of discounts ARE NOT SOUND PRACITCE 60 x $500.00 = $30.000 $60.000 @ $1000.00
WHEN YOU GO TO THE DOCTOR OR SURGEN FOR THE OPERATION YOU REQUIRE DO YOU ASK OR DO THEY MAKE AVALIBLE THE POSSIBILLITY OF A SAVINGS IN DEDUCTIBLE ? NO
Changes to the PDR industrie from an Insurance point of view are well under way that will soon corner Cat hail losses to the larger PDR firms that are entering into Direct Repair Agreements.
A prior Auto Hail Repair Story covers this.
In short independent will have 0 accsess to a large pool of major insurance co insureds due to future policy wording, and or verbal company lines communicated to their insureds.
With my prior Collision Repair experience I witnessed this first hand in the early 90s in the Chicago metro area with the Direct repair program rollout, and some shops got pushed around really good to the point if you want to work . They had to sign up for the program
Ok the point is consolidation is almost complete, independent Technicians must get bigger or start thinking of the real future of PDR.
Lets keep the Matrix intact, write the repair damge correctly, and understand discounting deductibles yes will fill bays but have and will Cut deep into the heart of the future of PDR.
P.S THANKS FOR ALL THE VEIWERS OF THIS BLOG YOUR ACTIVITY HAS MADE THIS SITE TOP 50 IN ALL MAJOR SEARCHES.
Mike
www.pdrtechgear.com/blog
COMMENTS OR FEEDBACK IS NEEDED AND ALWAYS POSTED TO MAKE THIS BLOG THE MOST COMPLETE AUTO HAIL REPAIR NEWS SITE ON THE WEB.
