Most coverage of the “Who Pays for What?” survey series looks at how often insurers pay for a given not-included procedure. The 2026 “Who Pays for What?” – Frame & Mechanical Operations Report also asks shops a more basic question: what they charge per hour.
The survey, conducted by Collision Advice and CRASH Network, drew responses from 473 shops in 49 states during April. Alongside the procedure data, the report breaks out body, frame, and mechanical labor rates by insurer (using data collected from across the country), for both direct repair program (DRP) and non-DRP work.
Each benchmark rate rose $1 from 2025
The report’s headline figures are the average median non-DRP labor rates for 2026:
- Body: $68 an hour, up from $67 in 2025
- Frame: $93 an hour, up from $92
- Mechanical: $127 an hour, up from $126
Each figure is the average of the median non-DRP rates shops reported for the eight insurers in the survey: Allstate, Farmers, Geico, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Progressive, State Farm, and USAA.
Just over half of shops, 55%, said they do not participate in a DRP with any of the eight insurers, according to the report.
Frame rates gained $6 in 2025 and $1 since
The report’s historical table tracks median non-DRP rates by insurer from 2024 through 2026. The averages moved up in all three categories:
- Body: $65 in 2024, $67 in 2025, and $68 in 2026
- Frame: $86, $92, and $93
- Mechanical: $124, $126, and $127
Frame shows the largest change over the three years, and most of it came early. The frame average rose $6 between 2024 and 2025, then $1 between 2025 and 2026. Body and mechanical each rose $2 in the first year and $1 in the second.
Insurer medians range from $66 to $70 for body and $125 to $135 for mechanical
At the insurer level, the 2026 medians varied by insurer. The median non-DRP body rate ranged from $66 for Geico work to $70 for State Farm and Nationwide work.
Frame medians ranged from $90 for Geico, Allstate, Farmers, and USAA to $95 for State Farm, Progressive, Liberty Mutual, and Nationwide.
Mechanical medians were $125 for five of the eight insurers, $128 for Nationwide, $130 for Liberty Mutual, and $135 for State Farm.
44% of shops have a separate structural labor rate
In its frame rate section, the report notes that 44% of shops said they have a separate “structural” labor rate that differs from their other labor rates.
For a shop weighing whether to set a structural rate of its own, that means a little under half of respondents already have one.
A percentile shows how many shops charge less than a given rate
Rather than presenting only an average, the report expresses rates in percentile groups for each insurer. Each percentile marks the dollar amount that the specified share of respondents falls below.
The report explains the method with State Farm body rates. The 50th percentile for DRP body work is $62, so half of respondents charge less than $62 an hour and half charge more. The 10th percentile for non-DRP body work is $58, so only 10% of respondents charge less than that and 90% charge more.
The report gives similar State Farm examples for the other categories. For frame, the DRP 50th percentile is $80 and the non-DRP 10th percentile is $68. For mechanical, the DRP 50th percentile is $100 and the non-DRP 10th percentile is $95.
Read this way, a shop whose non-DRP rate for an insurer falls below the 10th percentile charges less than 90% of respondents for that insurer’s work.
The data shows where a rate stands, not what it should be
Collision Advice and CRASH Network launched the series in 2015 to help shops understand how their billing practices differ from those of other repair facilities, according to the report. The rate charts let a shop find its own rate for each insurer it works with, by DRP status, and see what share of respondents charge more or less.
Mike Anderson, president of Collision Advice, wrote in the report’s guidance on pricing not-included work that he can’t tell shops what to charge. Each shop has to work out what its own labor will be, he wrote.
The latest quarterly “Who Pays for What?” survey is open through the month of October and focuses on scanning and calibrations, aluminum repair, and shop supplies. Shops can take the survey here.
The full Frame & Mechanical Operations Report is available to download now.
