The National AutoBody Research (NABR) has released a new version of its BillableGenie online software, which provides collision repairers with market-based estimate data.

“For years, perhaps decades, insurance providers have had an absolute competitive advantage over body shops for access to collision repair data from estimates leading to massive asymmetry of information between insurers and shops,” said Sam Valenzuela, NABR president, in a press release.

NABR says the new BillableGenie levels that playing field, giving all participating shops unlimited and searchable access to full estimates written by all shops that are part of the BillableGenie community.

Repairers can search repair estimate data down to the individual repair level, including line-item descriptions, labor hours, type of labor charged, labor rates, and more. Searches can be conducted by insurer, vehicle make, city and state, specific procedures, rates, and more.

Repair records are also tagged for non-DRP or DRP, customer pay, total loss, OEM-certified, and shop type (independent, dealer, franchise, MSO, etc.)

Using market data, NABR says the new BillableGenie enables shops to find answers to business questions they couldn’t easily answer before including:

• • “What do other shops in my market write on their estimates? Am I really the only one?
  • “How do other shops with my same OEM certifications write estimates, compared to mine?
  • “Do other DRP estimates include items that I don’t charge or get paid for?
  • “What prices and rates are other shops really charging?”

All shop names collected by BillableGenie are anonymous and no customer information is collected.

“Estimate data transparency is critical to enable a fair and free market economy for the collision repair industry,” said Valenzuela, in the release. “Among many other benefits, it helps drive fair competition, builds trust between shops and their customers, encourages innovation, and helps prevent any one party in a transaction from exploiting hidden information to the detriment of others.”

Interested collision repair facilities can reserve a free demo time slot at BillableGenie.com.

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