The “Who Pays for What?” survey series, conducted quarterly by Collision Advice and CRASH Network, is now in its 10th year, and offers evidence that shop awareness of not-included repair operations they are performing but may not be billing for has improved -- as has shops’ ability to successfully get paid for that work.
Feather, prime and block is one of the “not-included” repair operations that has been asked about every year since the first survey in 2015. Ten years ago, just over 1 in 5 shops (22% of those billing for the procedure) said they were paid “always” or “most of the time” by the eight largest national insurers for feather, prime and block when it was necessary and performed as part of a repair. But by this year’s survey in January, that had doubled to 44% of shops saying they are paid regularly for the procedure.
“In terms of actual numbers, these results indicate there are over 9,000 more shops regularly being paid for this in 2024 than there were in 2015,” Mike Anderson of Collision Advice said. “The surveys are important to keep raising shop awareness. Even today, about 1 in 20 shops still are not billing for this procedure when they perform it, despite the fact that 77% of shops that do bill for it get paid at least some of the time by those same eight insurers.”
Ten years ago, 53% of shops that negotiated to be paid for feather, prime and block said the insurers “never” paid them for it. But this year, just 23% of shops said they “never” get paid for it.
The latest quarterly “Who Pays for What?” survey is now open through the month of April. It focuses on not-included frame and mechanical labor operations. Shops can take the survey here.
Survey participants receive a free report with complete survey findings along with analysis and resources to help shops better understand and use the information presented.
The survey can be completed in about 15 minutes by anyone familiar with their shop's billing practices and the payment practices of at least some of the largest national insurers. Each shop's individual responses are held in the strictest confidence; only aggregated data is released.
The results of previous surveys are also available at www.crashnetwork.com/collisionadvice.
