Hail Damage Repair Facts, Denver, Highlands Ranch, Littleton, Lone Tree

Remember this important tip:
Insurance companies know how to make huge profits; PAINLESS DENT REMOVAL knows how to repair hail damage right the first time. Now who do you want advising you on hail repair- PAINLESS DENT REMOVAL or your insurance company?

Q: My car has hail damage from the recent hail storm. What should I do?

If your car is insured, you first have to determine what type of coverage you have. If you're not sure, call your insurance agent or the number located on your insurance documents to report a claim. Insurance companies classify claims into two general categories: (1) Collision, and (2) Comprehensive. If you have comprehensive or "full" coverage, and you're going to have your insurance company pay for the hail repair, you will need to file a claim with your insurance company first. If you do not have comprehensive coverage on your car, or you don't want to go through your insurance company for whatever reason and are paying for the hail repair yourself, then you need to give us a call to set up an appointment to assess the hail damage on your car. We will give you a written, concise estimate to repair your hail damage.

Q: Can you write my estimate to repair my hail damage before I contact my insurance company?

We can provide you with a written estimate to repair the hail damage on your car. However, if you are going to put a claim into your insurance company, and you have not contacted them, the first step is to call your agent or the 800 number provided by your insurance company listed on your proof of insurance or other insurance information for reporting claims. In most cases your insurance company will want their adjuster to write your insurance estimate. The adjuster will contact you to set up an appointment to inspect your car and give you an estimate. In situations where a large hail storm has damaged a large number of cars, most insurance companies set up a catastrophe site where you are asked to take your car where their catastrophe team of adjusters will write your preliminary estimate. In most cases if we write you an estimate first, the insurance company will just throw it in the trash. Having said that, some people with minor hail damage and high insurance deductibles have asked for an estimate before contacting their insurance company in order to determine whether the hail damage repair will cost more than their deductible. In those cases, we are happy to provide an estimate, too.

Q: What is the truth about insurance company's "preferred" repair shops?

The simple answer to that question is preferred repair shops are used by insurance companies to squeeze even higher profits from the premiums they charge their customers. Insurance companies don't repair cars; it's not their business. The insurance company's business is to charge a premium to insure the customer against the loss of an asset. So number 1, if the asset is never damaged, the insurance company keeps 100% of the premium, and 2, if the cost to repair or replace the asset is low, the insurance company enjoys a higher profit margin. Insurance companies use these preferred vender programs to drive down their costs in order to make huge profits. It has nothing to do with "quality" of repair. I admit insurance companies have some interest in the quality of the repair, but the insurance company’s number one concern is profit. Insurance companies don't repair cars, and they don't focus on quality. I have heard insurance companies guaranteeing their "preferred" shops' work. The truth is that if a "preferred" shop has a warranty issue, the insurance company will send the car back to the shop to correct the problem at the shop’s expense (as it should), or the insurance company will send the car to another one of its "preferred" repair shops to have to problem corrected and charge the original shop for the correction (as it should). The dirty little secret that insurance companies don't want you to know is that if a reputable shop has a customer with a warranty issue, it will correct the problem no questions asked. In addition, if a car owner moves away from the location where the car was repaired, that same reputable shop will pay another shop to correct the problem. Insurance companies make it sound like they have cornered the market on customer service and warranty issues. It’s simply not true. It’s a tactic used by insurance companies to insure all parties view the insurance company as the authority, but the majority of insurance adjusters have never repaired a car. Insurance companies lure repair shops into these programs by promising high volumes of work, and insurance companies lure their clients into their insurance policies by promising a higher quality repair by these so called "preferred shops." Insurance companies don't focus on quality; they focus on profit. Insurance adjusters don't focus on quality; they are looking for any way to save the insurance company money on the claim. Insurance adjusters only concern should be fraud: are they getting what they paid for. However, these days insurance adjusters are used to drive down claim costs by controlling what a repair shop can charge. If you think I'm kidding, think again. The number one argument I hear from insurance adjusters when they are looking at a repair shop's estimate is, "ABC shop doesn't charge for that." Or "The going rate is..." Can you imagine for one minute what the insurance companies would do if I went to them and said I'm only paying this amount for my insurance premium because it's my policy because ABC insurance company charges this amount, or it's the going rate? They would laugh me out of the building, yet they do it every single day. Insurance companies sometimes have customers bring their recently repaired car into their claims department to inspect the repairs. The thought is that they are checking the quality of repair. No, no, no, the insurance company is focused on profit. They are looking to see if the repair shop preformed all the repairs for which it charged the insurance company. Which is a good thing... for them. They are not looking to ensure the repair was done to high standards.

Q: Do I have to get the hail damage on my car repaired or can I keep the insurance money?

In cases where you own your car free and clear, you can cash your insurance check. Usually when your car is financed or leased, your insurance check is made out to you and the finance company or you and the leasing company. The finance company or leasing company may require proof that the hail damage on your car was repaired before they will endorse the insurance check. Most insurance policies contain an unrepaired damage waiver, which means if you accept payment for your damage and do not repair your vehicle, your insurance company can deny ANY future claims. Consult your agent for more details. Don't find out the hard way like some of our customers. We see cases come up 3 to 4 years after a hail storm where the owner cashed the insurance check and just lived with the hail damage but now can't sell the car because of the hail damage. And we see other cases come up where the car has to be returned to the leasing company and the leasing company threatens to charge huge amounts to repair the old hail damage. When the owner brings the car in to have the hail damage repaired, he/she is shocked to learn the insurance company only paid 1/2 to 2/3 of what the actual repair would have cost.

Q: What if my insurance check doesn't cover the actual cost to repair my car's hail damage?

You can rest assured your first insurance check will be for a lower dollar amount than what's required to do a proper repair. It's thought that the insurance companies purposely write a low estimate the first time on the assumption the car owner will cash the check and spend the money on something besides having the hail damage repaired. We have to supplement 99% of all the insurance estimates for hail damage on our customer's cars. We don't know for sure that this is the insurance company's policy, but assuming an insurance company processes a million auto claims a year, and the company saves just $25 on each claim, it can add up to huge savings for them. Now just think if the insurance company settles your claim for half the amount it would have paid and is now off the hook for any future hail claims you may have because of the unrepaired damage waiver in your policy. The savings are enormous. It's the car owner who will pay when it comes time to sell, trade in, or return the car on a lease. That being said, the normal process when additional panels on your car need hail repair, or additional labor tasks are required, is to notify the insurance company after the car is dropped off for repair. The insurance company will then come to the repair shop and re-inspect the car.

Q: Do I have to pay my deductible?

When you file a claim against your Comprehensive or Collision coverage in your insurance policy, your insurance company will pay the full amount of the damages less your deductible amount. You are required to pay your deductible. If another driver collides with your car and is at fault, you file a claim against the other driver's insurance policy. In that case you do not have to pay a deductible. However, when required to pay your deductible, there are cases when the insurance company will pay you an appearance allowance that is deducted from your deductible. For example, if you have a car with an alloy wheel, and the wheel receives a very minor scuff from being in an accident, the insurance adjuster may give you an appearance allowance of say $200 to live with the scratch versus paying $500 for a brand new wheel or $300 to have the wheel repaired. That $200 will be applied toward your deductible.

If you're asking If we will somehow inflate the price of the repair or charge for repairs that are not required in order to cover the cost of your deductible, the answer is "no." We would be committing insurance fraud. In some situations where the insurance company has settled and paid the car owner, the customer has chosen to opt out of having certain panels repaired then used that savings to put toward the deductible.

There are hail repair guys out there who will pay your deductible, buy you a windshield, and pay for your rental car. Usually they are the guys who rent a hole in the wall or pitch a tent in some parking lot, have no insurance, and cut corners to make up the difference. Think about your job for a second. If someone came to you and wanted 1/2 the money you would normally make for performing a task or making a sale so he/she could save money, would you put 100% into your job? NO! and neither do these "cheaper," out-of-town hail repair companies.

We don't get involved with people looking to make a big profit from their hail repair.

Q: Will my insurance company raise my rates if I file a claim for my hail damage?

Auto repair claims are categorized as either collision or comprehensive. Comprehensive damage is viewed as "acts of God," (we're not really sure why God would want to beat your car with hail). Hail claims are comprehensive claims. Comprehensive claims will not cause your premiums to increase.

Q: Why do you want to see my insurance estimate?

When a customer comes into our shop, we assume the customer wants to have the car repaired to its pre-storm condition. The first thing we ask is if the customer is going to go through his/her insurance. If the answer is yes, we normally ask if an insurance estimate has been written, and if it has, we ask to see it. There are two reasons: (1). If you have read answers to questions above, you know that the insurance companies usually want to write their own estimates first. If we write an estimate for your hail damage first, the insurance adjusters usually just ignore it. (2). Remember, The dollar amount on insurance company's first estimate is almost always below the actual dollar amount needed to properly repair the hail damage. They will write an estimate below the going market rate in hope of you, the car owner, cashing the check and not repairing the car, and conveniently blame the hail repair shop of charging too much. So if an insurance estimate has been written, we want to see the estimate to determine if a supplement will need to be submitted to the insurance company. If an insurance estimate has not been written, we usually send our customer to the insurance company first in a effort to save everyone a lot of wasted time. This usually weeds out the people who are looking to make a profit by creating a large spread between the actual cost of the hail repair and the amount the insurance company has already paid out. If you think we want to see the estimate in order to write our estimate for the same dollar amount, NONSENSE! We usually look at the estimate to determine if the estimate needs to be supplemented. If it does, we usually prepare the supplement and arrange a time for the customer to have the car re-inspected. If no supplement is needed (1 out of 100 cars), we schedule the car for hail repair. We assure you that if we were to write an estimate without seeing the insurance company's estimate, our estimate (as well as most other legitimate paintless dent repair companies) will be higher nine times out of ten, and we use the same pricing matrix as all the insurance companies use. The estimate will be for the same amount as it would be if we supplemented the insurance company's estimate. As we stated above, we don't get involved with people looking to make a big profit from their hail repair. Our reputation with insurance companies is too important to jeopardize.

Q: Can you give me an idea of what it would cost to repair hail damage on my car over the phone?

We get this question all the time. The answer is "no" because in order to give you a concise estimate, we need to count the number of dents on each panel, assess the size and severity of the dents, and assess the accessibility to the backside of each panel.

Q: 1). I am looking at buying a car with hail damage on it. Can you give me an idea of how much it will cost to repair the hail damage so I can make a offer on the car? 2). Can you give me a price range of what paintless hail damage repair casts?

1). Be careful buying a car, used or new, that has hail damage. We had one customer who wanting to buy a new Saturn Vue that had received hail damage while sitting in the lot. He told us the dealership said they got an estimate from a dent repair shop for $1200 and would deduct that amount from the sale price. He brought the car to us, and when we looked at it, we determined the hail damage was too severe to repair properly with paintless dent repair. One of the body shops we highly recommend wrote an estimate to repair the vehicle for around $9,000.00. There is no way that hail damage could have been repaired with paintless dent repair and looked good when it was finished. Folks, some people will tell you anything they have to in order to make a sale, but we will always give you the truth even if it means we might lose the business. We had a customer wanting to buy a used BMW M3 with large hail dents all over it. The cost to repair the hail damage was more than the car was worth. 2). A vehicle with hail damage consisting of only a few dents all over the car and is a candidate for paintless dent repair could cost around $500.00. A vehicle with severe hail damage all over the car but still a candidate for paintless dent repair could be as high as $3,000.00 to $4,000.00. Vehicles requiring a body shop to conventionally repair or replace panels and refinish could be all the way up to $8,000.00 or even higher for high-end cars.