How ADAS and Insurance Is Making Your Job Harder
By Tara Taffera
As you well know, the emergence of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and the push toward self-driving vehicles are changing the way cars are manufactured—and making your job harder. No one knows yet exactly how emerging tech will affect car insurance. But here are two looks at what experts are predicting.
1 Insurance Rates Won’t Decrease
All those safety features being added into cars won’t translate to lower insurance prices, experts say. All that technology that talks, drives automatically, and everything in between, is expensive. An article on nerdwallet.com pointed out that “windshields on cars with advanced driver-assistance systems, such as adaptive cruise control, can cost 82 percent
more to replace than vehicles without those features.”
2 Windshield Replacement Won’t Get Faster
No, windshield replacement will not get faster and, as you well know, the glass technician’s job will be even tougher. You will be at a job longer, which could affect your bottom line if you are doing fewer installations in a day.
An automobile with advanced windshield features needs to be calibrated following the install. That’s not an easy step by any means.
Technicians must recalibrate under precise conditions, and who is responsible for making sure that calibration takes place? Is it the glass shop that replaced the windshield or is it the car owner? You must prove that advanced technology requiring calibrations further
complicates matters, and therefore incurs higher costs.
While ADAS calibration is necessary, it’s not currently priced into many insurance company models. So the tech who has to calibrate often isn’t paid by the insurance company for the work. Most replacement shops have customers sign a waiver when they pick up their vehicle stating they will take it to have a recalibration done. The customer is then responsible for transporting it to the dealership for a recalibration. The customer is often unhappy with this choice, but again it often comes down to insurance. And in the end, no one is sure the consumer had the work done.
I’m preaching to the choir, but what’s the point of all this? The customer is mad at you, and you aren’t the one creating this situation, right? That’s where it becomes incredibly important to educate the consumer about the steps necessary to replace a windshield with advanced features. Educate them on what is being required by insurance companies. Above all, tell them that you will be giving them an expert installation that will help keep them safe. Period.
Tara Taffera is the editorial editor of AGRR magazine/glassBYTES.com
ttaffera@glass.com
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