“By leveraging the power of quality data, businesses can make informed decisions, identify new opportunities and stay ahead of the competition.” — Forbes magazine, April 2023
I recently read CCC’s Crash Course quarterly report. I had to stop and ask myself, “Why should I take my valuable time to read this insurance-biased information?” As I am writing to collision repairers here, most know that the information providers are quick to listen to insurers and MSOs, but the independent shops’ voices are given little to no value. A perfect example was the blend study done by SCRS back in 2022. SCRS did their absolute best to make the time study as independent and accurate as possible. They even involved the five major paint companies and I-CAR. The results were obvious, that to blend a panel vs refinish a panel required on average 131% of the refinish labor time of a new undamaged panel. It’s interesting what has happened even in the last 12 months, even with CCC. Now, when you enter to blend, say, a fender that was 2.2 hrs. refinish time, even if you don’t alter the time, it now leaves an underline under the labor time 2.2 and an asterisk * off to the left side of the line. Then on, say, an Open Shop assignment, anything less than a 50% reduction, the Advisor in CCC might state ‘Two-Stage Blend Time Exceeds 50%.’ By design, the system is built for insurers to have the advantage in this war/game of who keeps the insured’s premium dollars.
Here's the deal, shops: we are in a battle with insurers. When all the estimating systems went to the cloud 10-12 years back, our data was no longer privy to us. The estimating systems then, in turn, just hand over our data to insurers to find ways to keep rates suppressed, deny operations, and cut labor times.
Now back to the CCC report. In 2013, about 14% of vehicles totaled, and in 2025 about 23% of vehicles totaled. Understand this: in Copart’s earnings call Fall 2025, they basically stated they’re in direct competition with body shops to total cars and detour them from being repaired. Insurers and Copart share this data daily.
So, with all these adversaries at war against us, should we just become depressed and lose hope? OF COURSE NOT. There is still very good money in late-model collision repair! Now, let’s get to work. "In a world of more data, the companies with more data-literate people are the ones that are going to win.” — Miro Kazakoff, senior lecturer, MIT Sloan.
The Crash Course report stated that the TCOR (total cost of repairs) grew from $4,700 in 2024 to a not impressive $4,768 in 2025. Do you know where your TCOR is for your shop? If not, you better set your rear down and figure it out in your management system. Put it on a graph and see how you’re trending. Most independent shops know that in 2025 you couldn’t properly fix a car for $4,768. With OEM procedures and OEM parts and calibrations, that’s impossible, unless maybe you’re willing to donate your labor for free. Let’s say TCOR for your shop is $6,800.
Now, you must ask yourself, “What does it take to get to a TCOR of $7,000 in the next three months?” One obvious way is to stay laser-focused on labor average hours per R.O. If you don’t know what that is, either, it’s time to set that rear down again and find out! The Crash Report states the DRP average hours per R.O. was 27.6 in 2024 and 26.7 in 2025. With vehicle complexity on the rise, how could this number have been at 27.6 and then gone even lower? Basically, the MSOs are racing to the bottom to stay at the top of insurers’ referral lists. Who cares what the MSOs are doing, right? If your shop is at 38 hours, it’s time to trend for 40.
Now let’s talk about CT (cycle time) data. CT for DRPs went from 15.3 days in 2022 to 11.7 days in 2025. Some of you are saying CT is an insurance metric, and I couldn’t care less! Well, if you’re always booked out three to four months, then ok. If not, you had better start caring. You must ask yourself this: “Why would a consumer use my shop over, say, an MSO, if I am the highest-priced shop around and have terrible cycle times?” You must start tracking your CT! Consumers are willing to pay a premium, but it must coincide with speed!
To summarize, I think Mark Twain said it best: “Data is like garbage. You’d better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.”
