CCC has found the incorporation of artificial intelligence photo estimating into the predictive analytics Smart Total Loss tool permits the software to properly identify nine out of every ten total losses.
It’s “not really a false positive” situation in which the product is incorrectly flagging repairable vehicles as totals, according to CCC director and industry analyst Susanna Gotsch, who presented the outcomes in her own free 2021 “Crash Course” industry resource captured.
Rather, if you presented the CCC AI with data on 100 vehicles you knew to be totals, the program could correctly identify a lot more than 90 of these as a result thanks to the inclusion of photos.
The old Smart Total Loss software had been very good at determining totals based on information collected about the vehicle and damage, however the addition of images takes it to a new level, based on the 2021 data in the “Crash Course.”
“They were all above 90,” Gotsch said of the 2021 accuracy percentages shown within the “Crash Course” chart. Gotsch in April said the system has become within the 95 % range.
We asked CCC concerning the accessibility to such technology to auto body shops. Repairers also might look for a value in quickly triaging totals or using CCC as a “second opinion” to aid their argument to an adjuster that the vehicle taking on a bay is an obvious total loss.
“AI-powered claims are reducing the quantity of total loss vehicles delivered to repair facilities, reducing churn, and saving hours and hours for repair facilities,” CCC wrote. “Better, faster decisions possess a positive impact on the entire ecosystem as well as drivers.
“We're also dealing with repair customers on their priority use cases for AI-powered solutions. We will have announcements to talk about.”
Gotsch discussed both national total loss data and her company’s capability to immediately predict that vehicle condition during our interview this spring.
In a different study, CCC also discovered that photo estimating generally resulted in far quicker cycle times this past year on vehicles ultimately discovered to be total losses.
“We have seen better cycle time anyway,” Gotsch said.
This was specially the case on vehicles seen as driveable.
More than half the total loss claims involving photo estimating could change from assignment to estimate in 12 hours or less — compared to under 20 percent of other methods of inspection. A lot more than 80 % of photo estimated totals had a quote in 2 days or less — compared to not even half of all estimates completed in any number of fashions.
We asked why photo estimates had cycle times more than 12 hours at all. Gotsch explained the statistics depicted in the CCC analysis included as well time in which the ball was in the consumer’s court instead of the insurer’s.
She said a long cycle time lags, “especially for driveable claims, are those where you’re awaiting the customer” to consider. For example, the time between your claim is reported to the customer determining which approach to inspection they can wanted to use.
“We see better cycle time anyway, whenever we have photo,” she said.
CCC found 20.5 percent of all claims to be total losses this past year, up from 19.2 percent in 2021 and way up from 15 % this year. It’s been projected in part that pandemic restrictions reduced congestion, allowing Americans room to drive faster and crash harder last year.
“With drivers behind the wheel of larger vehicles, driving at faster speeds, it should come as no real surprise that accident severity and subsequently repair cost and total loss frequency were higher,” CCC wrote. “As we'll go through later, this combination of heavier vehicles and better speeds would be a key variable leading to increases within the average Delta-v of accidents throughout the pandemic.”
A trend toward more totals also already existed due to factors such as Americans buying bigger vehicles and keeping older ones, higher repair costs and much more severe weather, according to CCC.
How much higher could things go? “It’s very easy to determine it reaching 25 percent,” Gotsch said of totals. She noted that “everything has become so disposable.”
However, increasing penetration of tech like advanced driver assistance systems should reduce crash severity, Gotsch said.
One from the main factors spurring total losses is vehicle age, Gotsch said. 64.6 percent of totals in 2021 were a minimum of seven years old. “The depreciation cost becomes a major factor,” she said.
Get a $5,000 car right into a minor crash, and “it becomes pretty simple to total those,” Gotsch said. But 35 years from now, older models would all have ADAS and then avoid the kind of minor crashes that yield purely economic total losses, Gotsch said.
Things could enhance the total front even earlier than that. Autobraking is supposed to come standard on everything in 2022, but Gotsch has said 74 percent of all light-duty vehicles built-in the U.S. between Sept. 1, 2021, and Aug. 31, 2021, already had that technology installed anyway. So by 2027, three-fourths of all 7-year-old cars theoretically have the tech to prevent probably the most common kinds of collision. By 2029, all 7-year-old cars can brake themselves.
