There's a lot of similarities between Australia and Canada in terms of large landmass and relatively small population although they do have 12million more that us. Consolidation is much more advanced there - here's the IBIS global report on the Canadian repair industry.
Market Overview
The importance of OEM certification programmes continues to grow, with many shops seeking and/or attaining certification for at least one brand.
In addition, we’ve seen a number of general shop accreditation schemes launched in the last year. Certified Collision Care is the Canadian division of Assured Performance Network, and offers third-party accreditation.
The company also handles the OEM collision recognition programmes in Canada for Ford, Nissan and FCA.
This was officially launched in 2016, with the goal of accrediting collision repair facilities against a collection of industry standards taken from leading OEMs and other stakeholders.
The Automotive Retailers Association (ARA) of BC runs a very similar programme to CCIAP. An official Memorandum of Understanding exists between the two programmes.
In essence, if a shop qualifies for one, they qualify for the other.
Vehicles continue to increase in complexity, leading to the necessity to perform pre-and post-repair scans. The increase in vehicle complexity and the demand for updated technician training and equipment is another ongoing issue. Some shops may not have the liquid capital or credit needed to ensure they stay current.
The shortage of qualified technicians is ongoing, and has been an issue in Canada for decades. It seems very likely that this will continue to be an issue for many years to come.
Older technicians are retiring, and not enough young people are stepping up to fill their ranks. Efforts to attract younger generations to the field continue.
An ongoing trend is consolidation across the supply chain, continuing with insurers, repairers, suppliers, distributors, and other industry stakeholders. This has resulted in fewer, larger organisations. However, the pace of consolidation seems to have slowed in the last few years.
Compared to many other markets, Canada is further ahead down the path of industry consolidation.
Direct Repair Programs (DRPs) are a significant part of the Canadian collision repair landscape, with many facilities participating in them. However, they are by no means universal.
Many shops decline to participate. Insurance companies in Canada do not directly own or influence
collision facilities. However, they are often considered to be a shop’s biggest customer, so they do wield significant influence in this regard.
Anecdotally, there is more of a sense of cooperation between repairers and insurers in Canada than in some other markets.
The Canadian Collision Industry Forum (CCIF) meets several times a year in different Canadian cities. The bulk of the attendees are repair facilities – independent, family-owned, franchises, banner groups, multi-store operations (MSO) and dealerships – and sees participation of a wide range of stakeholder groups, including shop owners and managers, technicians, insurers, suppliers and wholesalers, recyclers, educators, trainers, service providers, Oes and trade associations.
The OEMs seem to be paying more attention than ever before to the collision sector. Many of them now operate their own certification or designation programmes.
Facts and Figures
Population: 36.3 million (estimated, 2016, Statistics Canada)
GDP: CAD$2,059.04bn (approximately US$1,550.54bn)
Number of people who hold a full driving licence: 24.9 million (2014, Transport Canada)
Note: These are all licensed drivers, as national statistics are not currently available regarding holders of graduated licenses.
The graduated licensing programme differs from province-to-province and not all provinces have them in place.
Total vehicle parc: 33,168,805 (2015, Statistics Canada)
Note: the total includes non-road vehicles such as snowmobiles, dune buggies and amphibious vehicles.
Total size of Canada’s road vehicle fleet for 2015 was 23,923,806 (Statistics Canada).
Average vehicle age:
Current information not available at this time. It was 8.95 years in 2011. Record years for new vehicle sales likely mean this number has decreased.
Total new road vehicle sales:
2014 - 1,890,387 (Statistics Canada)
2015 - 1,939,517 (Statistics Canada)
2016 - 1,983,745 (Statistics Canada)
Number of alternative fuel vehicles registered:
There are currently 18,451 electric vehicles (plug-in and hybrid) on the road in Canada at the present time (2016, FleetCarma).
Exact statistics on other alternative fuel vehicles are not available, but estimates tend to indicate that they form a very small part of the overall vehicle fleet.
One estimate indicates there are approximately 250,000 natural gas vehicles across both Canada and the US (Globe and Mail, 2013).
These are mostly fleet vehicles, such as city buses, garbage trucks and delivery vans. Propane occupies a similar position, as it is mostly used by large fleets rather than consumers.
Number of reported road collisions per annum:
Approximately 125,610 (2014, averaged using Transport Canada data). Note: Transport Canada only tracks collisions that resulted in a fatality or injury. Therefore, the actual number of road accidents is significantly higher. Please see the number of car repairs as an indicator of how much higher the number of accidents is in reality.
Number of collision repairs per annum: Approximately 1.4 million (2015, Mitchell)
Number of vehicle write-offs per annum: Information not available at this time.
Number of motor insurers: 110 (2015, Insurance Bureau of Canada)
Top three motor insurers by number of vehicles insured:
1 – Intact Financial Corporation
2 – TD Insurance
3 – Aviva Canada
(2013, Canadian Underwriter Stat Issue 2014 – as supplied by
GLOBALFOCUS
Average motor insurance premium and excess/deductible:
Average annual premium across Canada is $930. (Fair Benefits Fairly Delivered: A Review of the Auto Insurance System in Ontario by David Marshall.
The report was released by the government of Ontario in April 2017. The report focuses on Ontario, but the average premium given is for the entire country.)
Average deductible is not available at this time. Note: Automotive insurance in Canada follows different models from province-to-province.
Three provinces – Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia – have public auto insurance schemes.
The main providers of auto insurance in those provinces are effectively arms of the provincial governments.
Annual cost of motor insurance fraud:
No single reliable source is available for the entire country.
However, KPMG Forensic issued a report on auto insurance fraud in Ontario in 2012 that estimates auto fraud in the province to cost between $769 million and $1.56 billion in 2010.
This would have amounted to between $116 and $236 per average premium in that year. Ontario’s population is approximately 13.6 million, compared to Canada’s total population of 35.1 million.
However, it should also be noted that some sources believe auto insurance fraud is more common in Ontario than in other provinces.
Insurance approved collision repair networks in operation: Yes
Insurance owned collision centres in operation: No
Vehicle manufacturer approved collision networks in operation: Yes
Vehicle manufacturer owned collision networks in operation: No
Accident management companies active within market: Yes
Accident management company approved collision repair networks in operation: No
Total number of collision repair operators:
While networks and franchise operations have grown considerably over the past decade, the majority of shops are still independent, single location operations.
Number of collision repair centres: Approximately 4,500.
Types of collision repair centres:
Independents: Yes
Dealer: Yes
Networks: Yes
Group/multi-site operators (MSO): Yes
Franchise operators: Yes
Largest operators by number of sites:
1. CSN COLLISION CENTRES/Carrossier ProColor: 340 locations in Canada.
2. Carstar: 263 locations in Canada. Total count for all of North America is 507 as of 31 January 2017.
3. Fix Auto: Over 240 locations in Canada. The entire Fix Auto World network, headquartered in Canada, has over 550 shops in various markets.
It should be noted that there are also a number of very large regional operators:
Assured Automotive operates over 65 repair centres in Ontario; Craftsman Collision operates around 45 sites, primarily in British Columbia; The Boyd Group (headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba) operates over 40 repair facilities in western Canada, but also operates well in excess of 300 locations in the US; Speedy Collision operates 24 collision centres on a network model and was recently acquired by Belron Canada.
We’ve also seen the national roll-out of CCS, a dealership-only collision repair network operated by Consolidated Dealers, and CarrXPert, a network of new car dealerships and dealer authorised collision centres.
As of September 2016, CarrXpert offered support to over 500 dealerships and 200 collision centres.
Average cost of repair: CAD$3,370 (2015 Mitchell Industry Trends Report)
Average cycle time of repair (key-to-key): N/A
Average labour rate: CAD$45.44 (2015 Mitchell Industry Trends
Report)
Mobile collision repairers in operation (eg panel repair/s within mobile rig/booth): Yes
Number of mobile collision repairer operators: Not available at this time.
Mobile SMART repairers in operation (eg paintless dent removal specialists): Yes
Number of mobile SMART repair operators: Not available at this time.
Total accident repair market value: Approximately $4 billion, including both private and public insurance provinces.
Many of these programmes require a shop to have a dealer sponsor to being the application and auditing process.
Advancements in vehicle complexity and accident avoidance technology are two trends that will continue to have significant impact over next few years.
Canada (and the US) have experienced several record years for new car sales.
In turn, this means that a higher percentage of the total vehicle fleet is equipped with the latest technology in terms of lane departure warning, automatic emergency braking etc.
This will almost certainly lead to some kind of decrease in the total number of collisions.
However, it has also been proposed that collision mitigation technology may lead to lessened severity, which could lead to a lower total number of write-offs.
CARSTAR has combined its Canadian and US organisations into one company, owned by Driven Brands.
A statement from Michael Macaluso, president of CARSTAR North America, indicates that the network intends to grow to over 1,000 shops across North America.
Macaluso also indicated that most of this growth will be in the US.
Fix Auto, which began in Montreal, Quebec, has long operated in other markets around the world.
However, the organisation has recently expanded into China and Australia, two large markets where it did not operator previously. The global company is now known as Fix Auto World.