San Diego, CA – July 28, 2008 – Mitchell International, Inc., a leading provider of information, workflow, and performance management solutions to the collision claims and repair industries, today released the third quarter 2008 edition of its Industry Trends Report (ITR) — the company’s quarterly publication that highlights industry-related trends, news items and statistics.
This edition’s Quarterly Feature, "The Average Severity of Hybrid versus Gas Vehicles," by Mitchell’s Senior Director, Information Services, Jamison Day, discusses the recent results of a study conducted by Mitchell that examines the differences in estimates and average severities between traditional, gasoline powered vehicles and their hybrid counterparts.
"The ever increasing gasoline prices have effected virtually every aspect of our economy, including increasing the demand for hybrid vehicles," said Day. "Given their increasing popularity, we thought it would be interesting to see how the hybrid’s average estimate amounts compared and explore what might be driving the differences."
Day commented further, saying, "Our study looked across different geographies and also drilled down into parts and labor dollar categories. We saw that hybrid severities were consistently higher across different states and found that both parts and labor costs were higher for the hybrid vehicle repairs."
Other valuable points of interest in the current issue of Mitchell’s ITR include:
• At $13,400, the average Actual Cash Value (ACV) of vehicles appraised for Collision losses during Q2-2008 was $177 more than in Q2-2007, and also reflected slightly older vehicles.
• In Q2-2008, the initial average gross appraisal value for Comprehensive coverage estimates processed through Mitchell servers was $2,373—a 13% increase, compared to $2,100 in Q2-2007. Applying the prescribed development factor for this data set produces an adjusted value of $2,367—an increase of $273 over the same period last year.
Complete content is available in the latest Industry Trends Report, which may be downloaded in PDF format by visiting www.mitchell.com or the Training Center of this website.
First published in April 2001, Mitchell’s Trends Report has grown in both content and circulation, now reaching more than 23,000 collision and casualty industry professionals.