September 2025 collision corner
Managing Your Cyber Risk – NWACA Collision Lunch & Learn – September 9th, 2025, from: 12:00 to 1:00 pm Click HERE to register. Cybercrime is one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic exposures in business today. Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear about a security breach or incident involving the loss of sensitive data to hackers. We will discuss several layers of risk management that will help reduce a business’s exposure as well as coverage options available to transfer the risk to an insurance carrier.
About a dozen participants at the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) in Philadelphia called out I‑CAR leadership during an “open mic” session at the meeting for what they perceive as the training organization’s failure to hear the voice of smaller independent collision repair businesses, including a lack of representation by single-shop collision repair businesses on the I-CAR board of directors. Kansas shop owner Kena Dacus, for example, said she was “super-disappointed” when she learned recently that not a single I-CAR board member owns or works for a single-shop collision repair business. (I-CAR reserves four seats on its 13-member board for collision repairers. One of the four was a single-location shop owner – who remains on the board – but his business was acquired by a larger chain earlier this year.)
American Honda has released a new position statement on post-collision diagnostic scan and calibration requirements for Honda and Acura vehicles. The statement is as follows: It is the position of American Honda that all vehicles (refers to any model year Honda or Acura vehicle that is equipped with a diagnostic port from which DTCs can be retrieved with a physically connected tool, including all 1996 to current model year vehicles, certain 1994-1995 model year vehicles that contain a 16 pin OBD2 connector, and certain 1992-1995 model year vehicles that contain a 3 pin diagnostic connector) involved in a collision (defined as damage that exceeds minor outer panel cosmetic distortion) must have the following minimum diagnostic scans, inspections and/or calibrations done to avoid improper repair.
The Boyd Group, the Canada-based parent company of Gerber Collision & Glass, has become the second company (after Caliber Collision) in the industry to hit the 1,000-shop mark.
More than 2 in 5 (43%) of the nearly 1,141 inquiries submitted to the Database Enhancement Gateway (DEG) in the first half of this year resulted in a change to one of the estimating system databases by Audatex, CCC Intelligent Solutions or Mitchell. The bulk of those inquiries (937) were related to the CCC system, and about 47% of those resulted in a change. The combine changes to all three systems, he said, which were based on inquiries related to omissions or inaccurate information in the systems, added about 381 body labor hours, 93 refinish labor hours, and nearly $17,000 in parts pricing to the systems. So, keep the DEG inquiries coming; it’s making a difference.
The latest production employee data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggests that the collision repair industry may need to start hiring again soon. In June, the average production employee worked 39 hours per week, making it the third consecutive month where hours worked have significantly exceeded typical levels for this time of year, a sign that the industry’s current employees are working at near maximum capacity, and that shops will need additional help soon if this continues. In fact, the most recent three months of data (April, May, and June) show that average hours worked have all been higher than any comparable month during “normal” times.
