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Feel Bad for Insurance Companies

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Anyone else have experience with Tesla approved body shops charging insurance companies much more for body work? My quarter panel was scratched while parked in a parking lot and the body shop is charging 10x as must as the initial estimate by the insurance company.

I'm not too concerned about my premium. Just shocked at how much it costs to repair.
 
Insurers tend to "estimate" rather low, leaning sharply toward after-market parts or parts from junk yards. To be fair, when you are driving around in a 3 year old car, you HAVE a collection of used parts and replacing your used fender with a used fender is not necessarily a disservice. Yet people tend to insist on new because, typically, policies provide that. People tend to insist on that even though, if they were paying for it themselves, they would go for the $200 fender from the junkyard rather than $600 new, if given that option and a reasonable chance to inspect the junk yard part.

But insurers are also going to struggle for a while on what it costs to do body work on a Tesla. There are not a lot of junk yard parts available yet. Aluminum is notoriously more difficult to work with, and a lot of body shops don't know what they are doing yet. The ones that do may charge substantially more, and get it, because there is not a lot of competition. Insurers will take a while to get up to speed.
 
Don't feel bad for insurance companies, they always make money in the end.

I agree, Max, with one change. Insurance companies make money in the beginning, in the middle AND in the end.

You can bet if claims exceed the actuaries' models, your premiums will increase. You can also bet that if claims are a small fraction of the actuaries' models, your premiums will also increase, but not by as much.
 
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Anyone else have experience with Tesla approved body shops charging insurance companies much more for body work? My quarter panel was scratched while parked in a parking lot and the body shop is charging 10x as must as the initial estimate by the insurance company.

I'm not too concerned about my premium. Just shocked at how much it costs to repair.

Don't feel bad for them. Many insurance policies have had their collision portion skyrocket on certain Tesla VIN ranges due to the additional payout. And there's at least 5 threads here with people complaining that GEICO and others refused to pay out the Tesla body shop rate and just cut them a check for less than the total repair cost…

Feel bad for everyone who is thrilled about how how their SuperAmeriSafePenguin insurance is offering a really really really cheap policy on Teslas… And feel bad for consumers trying to shop for insurance wondering whether or not they'll actually pay out a Tesla claim without jumping through hoops.