Are long, pandemic-era car repair timelines making a comeback?

For claims adjusters, it’s like déjà vu all over again.

A shortage of both key parts and skilled technicians is stretching repair times for clients who get into auto accidents.

“One of the consequences I’m seeing is that…if [a shop] can’t source the part and there’s no [time estimate] on when they’re going to be able to get that part, then that person’s rental runs out,” Jesica Ryzynski, a claims specialist at Mitch Insurance, tells Canadian Underwriter.

“We’re back to seeing people potentially being in a rental for a couple months while waiting for a part, which we saw often during COVID.”

Interestingly, a recent U.K. study by Thatcham Research finds similar trends, noting 73% of repair and salvage professionals identify skills as a growing issue.

Related: More pothole claims, less repairs: How it affects the industry

On the bright side, she says, personal auto clients she works with are increasingly purchasing higher limits for post-accident rental vehicle coverage.

Beyond parts and labour, an adjuster and appraiser shortage is also causing claims to sit – all made worse by a high volume of accidents during this year’s harsh winter.

“This has just been a wild, wild winter for [damage]. It’s crazy,” Ryzynski says. “This is probably the first time that I can say I’ve talked to multiple people who have been involved in an accident and then [were] either trying to get home or trying to get to the reporting centre and [had] another accident on their way.”

Tracking timelines

On average, Ryzynski says, repairs are taking 10 days longer than normal to complete, but can take longer in smaller communities where both parts and labour can be harder to source.

“I think it is worsening…I’m running into it more frequently, and I’m being asked…‘Well, if we can’t get the part, can we just write the vehicle off?’ They’ve been waiting for a couple of months and it’s very stressful, and they’re paying out of pocket for a rental,” she tells CU.

“And we can’t [total it out if] it’s possible that we can get that part, and the vehicle is nowhere near that level of damage where they would even have considered writing it off.”

During and prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, parts shortages were particularly problematic for older vehicles for which many parts were no longer manufactured. But Ryzynski says shortages increasingly plague models introduced after 2020.

In some cases, she’s resorted to asking repair shops if they’d contacted wrecking yards to try and source the part – while noting safety regulations can prohibit certain vehicle parts cannot be salvaged and re-used for safety reasons.  

“And yes, they had. They’d tried [everything] to source it,” she says.

Complex cars

High-end features engineered into modern vehicles also contribute to longer repair times – particularly for luxury and sports models.

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“I’ve seen a couple of situations where we’ve got a vehicle in a shop. It’s repairable [and] waiting for the repair. But there’s one technician who knows how to work on that particular vehicle [or on] that particular area of that vehicle,” she says.

“And if that technician is on holidays, or they’re sick, sometimes the vehicle could sit there for a week [or] two weeks longer.”

A shortage of electric vehicle technicians is also producing similar problems for those vehicles, Ryzynski says.

Echoing that, the Thatcham Research study finds 41% of respondents say new technologies like electric vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems are driving up demand for specialist skills. Further, 43% of respondents says the skills gap is being exacerbated by automotive technicians moving to other industries.

Phil Porado

Phil, an award-winning journalist with over 30 years of experience in financial topics, has been managing editor of Canadian Underwriter for more than three years.