With vehicle insurance policy holders already reeling from previous hail storms late last year and being advised they will have to wait literally months for cars to be repaired, Sydney gets “pelted” again on Thursday 14 March by another series of hail storms. The Motor Traders’ Association of NSW (MTA NSW), an Employers Association representing thousands of automotive businesses in NSW, has witnessed first-hand as licenced independent smash repair businesses are essentially sitting idle, whilst other businesses in the same suburbs are struggling to cope with the amount of hail damaged vehicles being “farmed” into those ‘insurer preferred’ businesses. This does not make sense. In some cases, these businesses are basically next door to each other. What are the insurance companies attempting to do? Surely they have a responsibility to their policy holders in getting their vehicles repaired in a more timely fashion, rather than make their customers wait months and months for the repair of their hail damaged vehicle, and which they pay for via their insurance premium. “As an Association with over 350 smash repair business members, we call upon insurers to reduce the waiting time to repair hailed damaged vehicles for their customers by working with our member smash repair businesses“, said MTA NSW CEO, Stavros Yallouridis. “With some estimated repair times of up to October this year reported, and the recent additional hail damaged vehicles compounding the situation, it makes good sense to utilise all appropriate smash repair businesses to repair the damaged vehicles whilst providing an expected level of service to vehicle owners,” he said.
