High Repair Charges

High Repair Charges

Increase Insurance

Imagine being presented with a garage repair bill for 20 million automobile accidents. That is what the insurance Industry is faced with as a result of traffic mishaps throughout the United States last year.

The Insurance Information Institute has estimated that the tdtal economic loss from automobile accidents from 1969 adll be $16.5 billion, an increase of 15.8 per cent over the previous year.

The $16.5 billion represents the cost of repairing the automobiles, but also includes lost wages, medical expenses, and the service costs of insurance resulting from some 20,385,000 accidents in which an estimated 56,300 Americans died and more than 4.6 million were injured.

While the losses are paid for largely through insurance companies, the Institute notes that the ultimate cost falls upon those who pay insurance premiums.

Modern design and increased labor costs, have combined to send auto repair costs soaring in recent years. The increased cost of car repairs reflects more expensive designs such as wrap-around windshields and bumpers, modem safety devices, unitized and welded body structures, power equipment and numerous features being improved annually.

While modern times brought complex parts which cost more than their simple predecessors, increased difficulty in replacing the parts coupled with inflation has skyrocketed the cost of labor. While the hourly labor rate in repair garages was approximately $5 in 1965, the Institute notes the average labor charges now exceed $7 per hour.

Another insurance industry organization, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, recently reported on a series of automobile crash tests which “clearly established the remarkable delicacy oi contemporary autos.”

When medium-priced cars were crashed front-end into a barrier at