Ask Elite - January 2010
How do you think repair costs to our cars and light commercial vehicles will be affected in 2010?
Over the last few years we have seen relatively stable repair costs with only very small annual increases. The main downward pressure on costs has been labour, where good engineering has reduced the number of hours required for a repair from 17.5 hours to 16.5 hours, whilst the main upward pressure has been a rise in paint costs.
At Elite, we expect to continue to manage labour costs very closely, and this to counteract any upward pressure in paint costs. We therefore expect repair costs to be flat in 2010.
However there are other pressures that could affect your repairs this year, and these make it important to use the right bodyshops for your repairs.
There is a two tier market developing for repairs. Quality repairers keep abreast of rapidly changing methods of body construction and the special skills and equipment these demand. Such repairers can be identified because they have achieved PAS125 BSi Kitemark accreditation or manufacturers approval. You are safest using only these repairers. Secondly the investment required to repair modern vehicles to the proper standard is such that many repairers who do not have sufficient financial resilience will go out of business in 2010 which is not good if your vehicles happen to be undergoing work at the time.
To have complete confidence choose an accident management provider such as Elite Incident Management Ltd that has a PAS125 BSi accredited network of repairers and maintains that network to a high standard ensuring you will not be left in a difficult position if a repairer's business fails.
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