June 2025 collision corner
Shops’ average backlog of work hits 4-year low. Not since the second quarter of 2021 has the average scheduling backlog of work at shops around the country been less than two weeks, but it has returned to that level after a nearly continuous two years of quarterly declines. The “Who Pays for What?” survey conducted last month by Collision Advice and CRASH Network found that among more than 550 responding shops, the average scheduling backlog stood at just 1.7 weeks. Fewer than 1 in 10 shops (8.8%) reported backlogs of four weeks or more, a stat also not seen since 2021. By far, the largest group of shops (69%) has two weeks or less of scheduling backlog. That includes the slightly more than 20% of shops having no backlog at all, a figure that has never been higher (outside of the pandemic year of 2020) since the surveys began tracking backlogs more than eight years ago. The percentage of shops that had no backlog at all typically averaged about 15% in the three years prior to the pandemic, and just less than 8% in the years since.
The Boyd Group Layoffs
The Boyd Group, the Canada-based parent company of Gerber Collision & Glass, reported its fourth consecutive quarter of declines in same-store sales last week. But company representatives said a hiring freeze (of non-production employees) and shop office staff reductions in the first quarter, along with internalization of more scanning and calibration work, and improved performance-based pricing and margins on glass. Incoming CEO Brian Kaner said the non-production layoffs that began in the first quarter were based on a new staffing model. Shop office staffing had been based on revenue rather than car count, he said, and with growth in the average ticket the past five years, the office staff in the company’s shops had grown.
Washington State’s “Right to Appraisal Clause” was signed into law
Governor Bob Ferguson of Washington state signed into law legislation that requires all auto insurance policies as of next year (2026) to include a right to appraisal clause. The legislation sets out the terms of the appraisal process, including each side paying for its own expenses. The state legislature adjourned its 2025 session without passage of other legislation that would have given the insurance commissioner the authority to not just fine an insurer violating the insurance code but also order payment of restitution if the insurer possesses money or other property that is owed to another person. Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer has said she will press for that legislation in the next session.
