The term – industry accepted standards – is used by both insurers and repairers as it serves their purposes to earn the consumer’s trust. Industry accepted standards, relative to collision repair, is the feel-good lure of choice – cast out to convince the gullible. 

Since the term is usually mentioned reverently – as if its true definition were carved in stone, secreted away in some climate-controlled cavern deep within the bowels of the earth, where it can never be influenced or altered by the likes of man, unfortunately no one demands its definition.

But, in case you hadn’t noticed, the collision industry has no set of “standards,” let alone “industry standards,” let alone “industry accepted standards,” because this industry has no structure to create industry accepted standards, with no means of enforcing them if they did exist.

In a previous article, I mentioned that the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) has been poking at establishing some form of industry standards for years, but their toothless lists of “best practices” have only been suggestive in nature and remain totally unenforceable, with no foreseeable change in that regard.

Insurers have convinced certain repairers to sign on to their one-sided DRPs, thereby agreeing to conduct business according to the dictates of the insurer. But these are not “industry accepted standards,” just demands created by the insurance company aimed at wrenching further control of the collision repair process from the collision industry itself.

A friend to the collision industry stated the case so well: The idea of “industry accepted standards” refers to the so-called standards certain repairers accept because they are too cowardly to stand up to the industry that shoves these so-called standards down their throats.” Aaaaamen!

It is not solely my opinion that the only standards the collision industry needs to hold to are those personal standards that govern each individual repair professional. You alone are the acknowledged repair professional. Only you can set and maintain an acceptable standard of repair – and only for your shop.

 Your standard won’t necessarily be the same as that of your competitor, for every repair professional and every collision shop owner has a different view of what is, and is not, acceptable in collision repair, and of how willing they are to follow the dictates of their consciences. You, the collision repair professional, set the standard for collision repair in the professionalism, or lack thereof, with which you deal with your true customers – the vehicle owners.

You also set the standard for repair in the type of parts and materials you use, the way you treat your employees, and in a hundred other ways. But the buck stops with you. Standards will never be successfully dictated or legislated in collision repair because, though insurers would like to believe vehicles are repaired by robots, last time we checked, each repairer is only a human being who resists being channeled, except for those who accept insurer-channeling.