...the company’s inspection. At some point he discovered even that reconstructive estimate, with no parts ordered, would trigger a new incident report on a vehicle history report for a vehicle already repaired.

Benavidez’s concern is shared widely, based on some polling at the CIC meeting.

The committee in 2020 developed a set of five Golden Rules for those entities accessing and using shop estimate data; they can be viewed on the “work products” page on the CIC website. The goal was that by getting companies to agree to abide by the rules, the industry could deter data being used without a shop’s awareness and permission.

At CIC in Oklahoma City, attendees were asked if they feel those Golden Rules are being adhered to by the majority of their trading partners; 68% said no. Among just collision repairers at the meeting, 88% said they did not believe they were in control of their company’s data and how it’s being shared.

Schulenburg said he was surprised by that, because while he understands shops’ frustration, he thinks the data-sharing problems may be caused by a relatively few bad players.

“As skeptical as I am about the exchange of data, I believe most companies are doing the right thing,” Schulenburg said. “I think most companies doing the right thing are getting a negative implication because there are some companies choosing to make data aggregation an ancillary business model to their core function.

"Everybody in this industry should be concerned about that," Schulenburg said. "It’s impacting the view of the collision repair facility, and impacting the view that collision repairers have of products [in the industry] that exchange data. We should all be really vigilant so we can trust one another with that exchange.”