Mike Anderson and Sheryl Driggers of Collision Advice spoke at the 2024 SEMA Show to teach collision repairers how to negotiate with insurance carriers to get paid for everything they do to return a vehicle to pre-accident condition -- with a few updates.
Driggers was recently a contributing author on “Influence and Impact,” written by Chris Voss, a former FBI investigator. The book, which “redefines persuasion in modern business, emphasizing empathy as a cornerstone of success,” can be applied to the business of collision repair.
Negotiating Based on Facts
Before reviewing how emotions can affect negotiations, Anderson -- who said he had to learn how to negotiate when he owned multiple shops in the Alexandria, VA, area, where real estate costs were high, so he could pay his bills -- talked about fact-based approaches.
“Negotiations are a discussion aimed at reaching an agreement -- not a fight or an argument,” he said.
Get the Customer On Your Side
“The No. 1 thing that you can do to help you to be more successful negotiations is to get the vehicle owner on your side,” he said.
That can be useful when negotiating with an insurance appraiser. “If I can get the vehicle owner to believe that I'm competent, then they're going to trust me when it comes to taking my side or the appraiser’s side,” Anderson said.
Anderson quoted Ryan Taylor of BodyShop Booster: “People are more afraid of making a wrong decision than they are of spending money.”
For collision repairers, that means they have to convince vehicle owners the recommended repair procedures an insurance company may be refusing to pay for are, in fact, necessary.
“The No. 1 way to do that is to review the vehicle owner's manual with the customer when they walk into your facility,” Anderson said.
Anderson said he shows customers what their owner’s manual says about OEM vs. non-OEM parts and ADAS recalibrations.
“Every single owner’s manual will say you must inspect the seat belt [after a collision], because not inspecting it could result in injury or even death. I’m establishing with them that I’m the expert,” Anderson said. “Now, when I ask the insurance carrier to pay to inspect the seat belt and the carrier says no, I've already set myself up for success with the vehicle owner.”
Then Anderson can tell the vehicle owner to reach out to the insurance carrier and tell them they want the seat belts inspected.
Also, shops not in a DRP with an insurer can tell the customer to call the insurer, to encourage them to expedite supplement reviews.
“I will do this every single day,” Anderson said. “Not a text, not an email. I will use my phone to call every single day, because after about the third call, now the customer's gonna get involved.”
Whether the insurance company approves the supplement or the customer decides to pay the difference themselves, it’s better than the vehicle waiting for weeks in the shop.
The Rules of Negotiation
Anderson said there are four rules of negotiation:
1. Your opinion don’t mean jack.
The only thing that matters is what you can prove, substantiate or justify.
“Every time you write a repair plan, ask yourself, if you had to stand before a jury of your peers, will they think I’m overcharging, or will they understand why I need to do what I say I need to do?” Anderson said.
2. Don’t take the bait.
Anderson said insurance appraisers are trained to tell repairers they are the only ones charging for certain procedures.
“That is a negotiation tactic that is entirely made to distract you,” he said.
3. Stick to the facts.
There are four questions to ask when an insurer refuses to pay for a procedure: Is it required? Is it included? Is there a pre-determined time? If not, what is it worth?
4. Prove it.
Repairers should ask the appraiser if they believe the procedure is required to restore the vehicle back to pre-accident condition.
“When I get a ‘no,’ I’m uncovering the objection. That gives me the opportunity to make them believe it is required,” he said, by showing documentation like an OEM repair procedure, resources from scrs.com or degweb.org, or various material manufacturers’ bulletins.
Once they agree it is required, ask if it is included in any other labor time. If they say it is, now the repairer can prove it’s not.
If the appraiser says it’s not included, go to your estimating system to see if there is a pre-determined labor time, because that’s what should be paid.
If there is not a time, the final question is how much the procedure is worth in labor. The degweb.org site also comes in handy here, as repairers can submit inquiries to have missing procedures added to estimating systems, or have labor times adjusted.
Anderson said he once paid a professional videographer to record his shop’s techs performing certain tasks -- from prep to clean up -- to show insurance appraisers exactly how long each procedure takes.
“Do you want easy, or do you want worth it?” he said.
Always close a negotiation request by stating the negative consequences if the repair procedure is not performed, Anderson said. For example: “If I do not inspect the seat belt, it may not deploy in a future accident, and somebody could die.”
“When you ask without drawing attention to the negative consequences, you’re asking versus telling,” he said.
Anderson said often, repairers use the insurance company’s refusal to pay as an excuse for their own lack of knowledge.
“The real reason [they don’t pay] is we couldn’t explain [why it was necessary],” Anderson said. “No doesn’t mean no. No means they don’t know enough to say yes.”
Anderson said the collision repair industry needs to stop conditioning estimate writers to expect insurers to refuse to pay for procedures.
“Never underestimate the power of 0.1 [labor hours], because when you get them to pay for 0.1, six months later that becomes three tenths, then five tenths or an hour,” Anderson said.
How Emotions Affect Negotiations
Driggers said emotions absolutely impact negotiations -- negative feelings can hurt the process – but research has shown there is no way to completely remove them.
When it’s clear an insurance adjuster, customer or employee is having a bad day, the best thing to do is to acknowledge it.
“It’s addressing the elephant in the room,” Anderson said. “Labeling is giving a voice to the other side’s feelings.”
Driggers said to do so, avoid first-person statements, like “what I’m hearing” and “what I think,” because it makes it sound like your opinion is more important. Instead, use phrases like “it sounds like,” “it feels like” or “it looks like.”
“When I say, ‘It sounds like you’re upset with me,’ I’m addressing their negative energy but in a respectful, polite way,” Anderson said.
Labeling the negative is also useful when asking for an insurer to pay for a new line item.
For instance, instead of saying, “I know you’re going to think I’m overcharging,” say, “I’m sure this is higher than what you’re accustomed to seeing.”
Use the Pause
Anderson said insurance companies use “the pause” – or dynamic silence -- on estimators all the time.
“When you ask for labor time on an estimate line and the insurance appraiser doesn’t say anything, it causes the estimator to second guess themselves and lower their request,” Anderson said.
“Use the pause back on them,” he said. “Say I want eight hours [of labor time], but they just want to give me four. I'll say, ‘You only wanna give me four?’ And then I'm just gonna be quiet. And now what do they do? They start to second guess themselves.”
Staying quiet also gives the adjuster more time to share more information.
Mirroring
Mirroring is when you repeat one to three words someone just said, to encourage them to elaborate.
“The more you mirror back, the deeper you’re going to get on why they’re saying no,” Driggers said.
For instance, when an adjuster says “I can’t pay for that procedure,” repeat, “You can’t pay for that?”
She said to make sure your tone of voice isn’t aggressive, because that puts the other person in a defensive place. “People always say no when they’re defensive,” she said.
Calibrated Questions
Use “how” or “what” questions, as opposed to “why” questions.
“If they say ‘I’m only going to pay for you to remove the steering column if it turns out there’s damage,’ you can say, ‘How am I supposed to do that?’ instead of ‘Why don’t you want to pay for it?’” Anderson said.
Driggers recommended keeping emails as short as possible, to use calibrated questions and to never type in all caps, because it looks like you are yelling at the recipient.
Anderson said anyone can receive the full presentation on negotiation tools by emailing his assistant, Tiffany Driggers, at tiffany@collisionadvice.com.
Abby Andrews