Solera says photo estimating AI readily available for body shops, discusses repairer, insurer thoughts about tech

Solera on Monday announced the rollout from the artificial intelligence photo estimating system Qapter to body shops in Europe and North America.

The Audatex parent company said shops could adopt the automated technology “in under 30 days.” It allowed “non-skilled damage appraisers” to acquire an estimate in less than 3 minutes by feeding photos into the software.

“Solera's method of pre-integrate AI in Qapter meant we were in a position to begin a pilot in only 4 weeks,” J”org de Groot, business process manager of the European auto body repair chain Schadenet, said in a statement Monday. “This allowed us to spend time training the team and getting ourselves used to this new way of working.”

“It’s all about the platform,” Solera strategy V . p . Driaan Du Toit said concerning the speed of creating the technology in a shop. The integration into Solera software meant the ability was “basically there” for existing users, he said in an interview Feb. 22. The body shop must simply train and upskill staff, he explained.

A recent update upgraded that old Audatex ADXE platform with Qapter, Du Toit explained. “Audatex is Qapter,” he explained.”… It’s not separate.”

Solera said Monday the Qapter Intelligent Estimating option would arrive for users having a “simple upgrade path.”

“Solera's product method of AI and Machine Learning makes it possible for repair centers introducing photo-based estimating as a simple release upgrade,” Solera Chief Technology Officer Evan Davies said inside a statement. “The solution is ready to produce accurate estimates for light to medium damage cases, allowing estimators to concentrate on more complicated cases.”

“Solera's unique approach that combines data science and Repair ScienceTM detects damaged parts and recommends repair operations and times according to scientific research,” Solera wrote in a news release.

The technology could help multi-shop operators determine which of their locations was best equipped to handle a particular vehicle, according to Solera.

“With Qapter we're ensuring the complex cases are allocated as soon as possible, within the claims process, right repair team,” Schadenet director Leontine Sitters said inside a statement. “Which ultimately saves us energy and cost and improves customer satisfaction.”

Solera in November and December 2021 polled a combined 500 “enterprise bodyshops and OEM dealer networks” and 500 insurers worldwide on concepts for example digitization and artificial intelligence.

“Bodyshops and OEM dealers would anticipate seeing the highest return on AI in the next Twelve months through increased employee efficiency and improved profitability ,” Solera wrote in polling data shared with Repairer Driven News.

Twenty percent of shops and dealerships felt they’d pursue high returns with AI “at either the remote estimating or repair authorization & invoicing stage.” United states shops and dealers had the greatest interest in using AI for remote estimating, with 24 percent of facilities agreeing with this response.

Forty-one percent of auto body shops and OEM dealerships called cost their top barrier to automation, Solera said in announcing the polling results Feb. 2.

The repairers and dealers felt legacy IT systems, an unknown roi and time to market represented challenges to using AI, Solera said. However, only 35 percent of respondents saw simultaneously factors as concerns, based on Solera.

Du Toit said he felt collision repair and insurance industry curiosity about AI “pretty similar across the workforce.” Both wanted accuracy, speedy cycle time and few supplements, he said.

Customer demand for the tech appears to exist. Solera’s November-December 2021 polling also surveyed 1,500 “tech-savvy” customers worldwide. It found 78 percent would favor an appearance shop “that gives more digital channels to quote, book, and track repairs,” the data provider wrote Feb. 2. Seventy-three percent of customers “would choose some insurance company using AI to process claims quicker,” and 67 percent would change to a rival insurer whether it provided “a quicker digital experience.”

“We've reached a point where leading information mill placing main concern on adapting and integrating cutting edge technology to distinguish and optimize customer experience. The ones that don't, will face competitive challenges,” Davies said in a statement Feb. 2. “This survey simply underscores what Solera has considered to be true for some time; automated processes have the capacity to increase client satisfaction and even customer retention.”

Shops and dealerships worldwide cited customer demand as a major reason for increasing digitization in general.

The COVID-19 pandemic represented no. 1 reason shops and dealerships said they wanted to go digital , according to additional research Solera shared.

37 percent of shops and dealers were thinking about the option for employee safety and remote work, and 37 percent pointed to customer demand.

Nearly that proportion — 36 percent — expressed “the desire to modernize the workflow,” based on Solera.

Insurers and AI

The AI Qapter photo estimating technologies are also available for insurers and can be integrated “very, quickly,” Du Toit said. He said Solera has implemented it in as little as a month, but insurers and MSOs have a tendency to view integration as a 3- to 6-month process.

“Car insurers globally would look to implement AI within the auto claims workflow in the fraud prevention stage , the full claims workflow and cash settlement to best achieve preferred tax treatment,” Solera wrote in additional polling data provided. For United states insurers, AI within the full claims workflow was “ranked top,” at 23 percent.

Solera in a Feb. 2 news release said polling revealed “large insurers must overcome distinct obstacles compared to other market participants.” Like body shops and dealers, insurers saw cost his or her top barrier, with 52 percent of carriers providing this answer.

But the Solera poll found 62 percent of huge insurers also viewed time for you to market as a major challenge. “Most people are rushing to get it done,” Du Toit said.

Solera said scalability and upskilling the workforce were each also considered significant challenges by 52 percent from the insurers.

We asked: Wouldn’t such technology be infinitely scalable following the initial implementation period?

Du Toit said hello depended on one’s technology provider. For a company like Solera, “scalability isn't a challenge.”

Du Toit said upskilling insurer personnel for AI would involve teaching employees a new claims workflow. Under traditional claims, an adjuster knows what to check and make preparations the estimate themselves.

“He'd be more area of the process,” Du Toit said.

But under an AI photo estimating system, the adjuster is just handed a prepared sheet, based on Du Toit. Rather than write a quote, “they’re gonna evaluate it,” he explained.

Collision industry best practices demand 100 percent disassembly, measuring and scanning vehicles when developing an estimate.

Without these steps, it’s a near certainty the initial estimate will be insufficient. CCC’s 2021 “Crash Course” found vitamins rate of 82.3 % among vehicles handled by direct repair program facilities during the year ending Sept. 30, 2021. The average supplement arrived at 14.5 percent of the total repair cost.

Mitchell also reported in 2021 that it is research found human-prepared photo estimates led to supplements averaging a lot more than 50 % of the price of the initial photo estimate. In-person estimates only yielded supplements above 30 percent from the initial sheet. However, Mitchell also noted that the supplement amounts finished up being fairly similar, for photo estimates typically weren’t utilized on higher-dollar claims.

We asked Du Toit about the perception of “automotive claims driven entirely by Artificial Intelligence,” something Solera said its polling found would be trusted by 76 percent of consumers. Sooner or later, we observed, the vehicle will have to be disassembled, and damage not visible to the AI would be inevitable. Was the idea that the fully automated software could automatically approve the ensuing supplements from body shops?

“I think everyone should know it’s a journey,” Du Toit said. Developing a line-by-line estimate based upon photos is really a new capability and represented the first step along the way, according to Du Toit. This probably had the opportunity to address damage of as much as $2,500 in severity — a range he said represented a “very large portion” of claims.

The average repairable estimate in 2021 came in at $3,225, according to CCC. Among DRP shops, 39.4 percent of repairs during the year ending Sept. 30, 2021, cost $2,000 or less. Another 20.7 percent were between $2,00.01 and $3,000, CCC said.

The idea is always to rapidly get to the point where an AI estimate proved “accurate enough” to automate the approval and settlement procedure for these claims, Du Toit said.

Solera’s polling found “72% of respondents citing confidence within an automated claims and repair journey.”

Solera’s next phase of AI estimating would involve machine understanding how to predict unseen damage using machine learning, based on Du Toit. The pc would draw from lessons tied to Solera’s vast library of claims and photos associated with specific estimates, he explained.

“Once more, that is a journey that we will have to go on,” he explained.

For now, the focus ended up being to implement Qapter and use photographs to create automated line-by-line estimates ready for insurer staff review, according to Du Toit.

“Everyone should know that’s where the journey reaches this time,” Du Toit said.

He said insurers wish to get to the point where “there’s no human touch,” and Solera believed this is possible “very soon” for lower-severity claims.

Du Toit said the AI also offers the ability to predict total losses. He said it drew this conclusion based upon the harm detected off of the photos and the customer’s solutions to certain questions at the first notice of loss, a combination “that is more accurate.” It also may go deeper than the usual traditional direct repair program referral system, choosing which shops to recommend according to not just KPI performance but also their qualifications to handle the damage detected, for example OEM certifications.

“It’s much more scientific,” Du Toit said.