Our Vehicle Damage Assessing service is regularly utilised by our automotive clients to support them in the management of catastrophic loss events, when they occur.
One of our automotive clients in Europe had experienced a catastrophic loss event, where circa 2,000 vehicles in a northern European port were significantly damaged. Our expertise was required to:
• Review the rectification process
• Engineer the repair methods to control the costs
• Monitor the repair standards and reinforce quality
• Ensure the process was as efficient and streamlined as possible
We were appointed to support the initial response to the event. Then our remit was extended to validate and control the quality of approved repairs, once completed. This event required physical assessment of the damage found, as well as to review and engineer the presented/claimed repair costs.
The steps undertaken included:
- Categorising the vehicles to an agreed criteria.
- The completion of in depth and detailed quality inspections.
- Inspection of vehicles already categorised by the port as heavily damaged – in order to provide a sample of detailed repair estimations.
This resulted in accurate and prompt reserving for the insurers and early management of both the repair process and method.
Following the initial review of the damages, and together with the nominated repairer, the repair methods and times were agreed and detailed estimates were created by our engineers.
Key benefits to our client included:
- Our process reduced the vehicle damage assessing requirements, as the majority of the validation activity was completed at an earlier stage.
- Through this process a number of vehicles were re-categorised from ‘total-loss’ to a sub-standard vehicle criteria, resulting in significant cost savings.
- Where costs had been presented by the repairer at an earlier stage, we received and completed desktop vehicle damage assessments and reduced the client’s costs on average by €250 per vehicle. This equates to a €9.38 saving per €1 spent.
Following completion of repairs, our client also required us to monitor the post repair quality. This ensured the effected repairs were to the required standard, and any poor repairs identified and resolved promptly prior to onward shipment.