The DEG received several inquiries each month because a shop is trying to match or copy an estimate from the insurance company but cannot make the estimates match even though the shop and insurance company are using the same estimating system. The first question is always “does the insurance companies have a different database then the shops do?? This is a very good questions and something that has been asked several times to the information providers and the response is always no, the shops and insurance companies are on the same database. So why the difference??
There are many factors that can contribute in not being able to match the estimate from an insurance company or adjuster.
The first is your user settings. An example would be the bumper prompt in CCC One. The bumper prompt is a user defined function that tells the system if the bumper will be refinished in the same procedure as the other parts or if it will be refinished alone. When calculating the estimate the bumper group will not be affected but the other refinish operations will. If you select yes to the prompt then it will not take an overlap on the next refinish operation, but if you select no to the prompt then it WILL take an overlap on the next refinish operation. Unfortunately when reading a printed estimate we have no way to tell what option has been selected. We have asked CCC to identify this on the estimate but they have denied our request as seen in DEG inquiry number 5915. When having this issue you must ask the adjuster what settings they have selected in their system.
Another reason for different estimates and probably the most frequent is the shop and adjuster are on different update versions. This was the case in a recent inquiry, number 5788. The database was adjusted and the shop had the current update version but the insurance adjuster was on an older update so the time was different. If you look at the bottom of a CCC One estimate it will give you the update version in the footer. I know from my estimating days that sometimes we ignore or throughout the last page but it holds some key information that may be needed. You may see this more when an estimate was written several months or years ago and yourself or the adjuster is writing a new estimate because the original estimate written days or years ago will not have the current updated info.
Manual entry lines can contribute to different estimates as well. If you or the adjuster creates a manual line or modifies a system entry line then the estimating platform may not take the proper deductions or may apply incorrect deductions. An example would be if you write to replace a fender then add or modify the bumper line to “drop only” then the system may not calculate the fender time correctly.
Matching an insurance estimate can sometimes be time consuming and difficult but during this process if you have any questions or problems feel free to visit the DEG website for more information or contact us at admin@degweb.org.
