Oct. 15, 2014—National AutoBody Research (NABR) officially launched its Ray Gunder Real-Time Labor Rate Survey on Monday, the first step in what the organization hopes will be a national campaign to “reverse the past trends of seriously deficient levels of labor and material rates,” according to an announcement on the organization’s website.

The goal, NABR states, is to determine new prevailing market rate “ranges” for the industry, “which more accurately reflect labor and material rates based on auto body shop's true cost of doing business.”

The surveys, which started Monday in Florida and Georgia, couple with NABR’s Variable Rate System to provide a real-time outlook on current market prices for labor and material rates in collision shops.

According to the NABR website, the survey will include four main features:

• It will incorporate a continuous real-time survey for an indefinite period of time that will allow shops to adjust the Prevailing Market Rate Ranges (PMRR's) throughout the year as cost and operating expenses arise.
• It will incorporate a continuous real time survey of fair and reasonable and sufficiently profitable (FRP) labor and material rates shops would charge if their rates were not being influenced by insurers.
• It will incorporate a continuous real-time survey and comparison of I-Car Gold Class shops with Multi-Certified shops, and non-certified.
• It will incorporate a continuous real-time survey of training, certifications, and equipment.

For more information about the survey, or the NABR’s Variable Rate System, visit variableratesystem.com.