A recent WCVB expose asked the question “Are auto insurers putting the bottom line ahead of safety?”. You The answer is a resounding the YES!! You can link to that article and broadcast here.
The insurance companies are putting profits before safety in auto repairs. It is very easy for them to do this when there is a unitized frame. At this point almost all cars and many small trucks and SUVs have unibody construction. It saves the insurance companies a lot of money, and it does result in unsafe cars being on the road. I discussed this issue at some length three years ago in my blog “Car Accidents and the Importance of Auto Repair and Registered Shops”.
In most rear end collisions, I see a first appraisal of around $500 or less. This is to replace the bumper cover (the piece of plastic that decorates and covers the bumper assembly) and perhaps the bumper absorber (the piece of styrofoam behind the bumper cover that helps it to look unharmed in low speed collisions). Neither of these are part of the safety system of the car. Behind the bumper absorber is the reinforcement bar (“rebar”). The rebar is a hunk of structural steel bracketed to the frame of the car, which is there to protect you. If it is bent, the rebar is no longer providing full protection. With structural steel, the shape of the object is important. Damage to the rebar can be seen by removing the bumper cover or by crawling underneath the car with a flashlight and looking up at it. An appraiser will never pop of the bumper cover, and perhaps should not. They should crawl under the car, but I have never seen it done.
I actually took a class in auto body damage appraisal. My teacher was a manager at an insurance company. I asked him why the supplements on my rear end claims were always so much larger than the original appraisal. He was baffled by the question as he had just called the rear end appraisal “the easiest appraisal out there”. He said that the only thing that he could think of was that appraisers were not crawling under the cars to look for damage. Then he said “come to think of it, I was never trained to do that”. To the contrary, they are trained not to do that. Replacing a rebar typically costs about $1500. It is also an important part of keeping the car’s occupants safe. Apparently, the insurance companies do not find this to be a difficult choice.