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Page 2 of 2 Speakers differ over diminished value As Dan Dutra opened a 2-hour discussion on the controversial issue of diminished value during CIC in Salt Lake City, he admitted it was not a topic everyone wanted on the meeting agenda. "The question came up early on: Is there anything we as CIC can do to impact or solve this issue?" Dutra, co-chairman of the CIC Industry Discussions Committee said. "And if there's nothing we can do other than discuss it, why fuel the fire? But the purpose here is just to share information. What we found in discussing this issue is that there's a lot of misperceptions and a lot of stuff people don't understand. They don't understand the law, and how it may impact their market versus that of another state. So we thought if we brought information, it could help you best position how your business, as a stakeholder in this industry, is going to deal with this issue." During the first of two panel discussions on the issue during the meeting, attorney Bob Hurns of the National Association of Independent Insurers (NAII) offered his view that the answer to DV lies in state law. "If state law says it exists, then it does exist," Hurns said. "If state law doesn't provide for it, then it doesn't." Hurns said there are nine states in which court rulings allow for DV, and 17 states that have disallowed it; about half of all states have yet to establish case law on the subject. Another attorney, Erica Eversman of the Ohio-based Vehicle Information Services, countered that state law can't dictate consumer perception; unless or until consumers are convinced that a vehicle that has been repaired well is not worth less than one that has never been repaired, she said, diminished value exists. She pointed out that even insurers often take previous claims on a vehicle into account when establishing its value to determine whether damage from a subsequent accident will "total" the vehicle. Dutra said that while there is still much disagreement over the DV issue, his own discussion of the subject with collision repairers had one clear finding. "About 99.3 percent have the opinion that the industry is capable or returning a vehicle to pre-accident function and appearance, and what the repairer does is not the cause of DV," Dutra said. "A poor repair is just that: A poor repair. It can be remedied. The event called the accident is what contributes to DV, not the repair itself." John Yoswick is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon, who has been writing about the automotive industry since 1988. He can be contacted at (503) 335-0393 or by email at
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