Smash repairers unfortunately see a lot of damaged vehicles whose owners, for whatever reason, aren’t properly covered for the cost of repairs. We also know exactly how inconvenient and distressing it can be for busy people to be left without transport while their vehicles are being fixed. This situation is compounded in the case of people who rely on their cars for work, or worse, for those who drive non-standard vehicles like campers, buses and trucks.

If you’re driving a non-standard vehicle, for private or commercial use, it’s worth giving your insurance some serious thought. Like all insurance, policies on these vehicles balance considerations of risk, cover and cost, but you should always think about the fact that in the event of an accident, your motor-home is likely to need a very different sort of care and repair to a family sedan. Damage to non-standard vehicles is also much more likely to impact your life and circumstances beyond your transport needs – if you’re travelling in your Winnebago, where will you sleep while it’s in the workshop?

Some things to consider when choosing your policy:

• Will you need accommodation or relocation while your vehicle is being repaired?
• Does your vehicle require specialised towing?
• Do you need a specialised smash repairer?
• Does your insurance company account for all of your needs?

Unless you are absolutely confident that your insurance policy addresses these questions (and even if you are!) we would always recommend contacting an insurance broker to make sure that you’re getting the right insurance. A broker has access to a multitude of policies and will be able to advise you on which one is most suitable for you and your vehicle.

Some motoring clubs and societies offer policies for their members, and it can be worth seeing what they have to offer. Many of these policies will be discounted by insurance companies as a means of fostering loyalty, while others will have been specifically formulated to suit the imagined use of your type of vehicle. But there is no guarantee that these customised policies are going to be right for you.

Our suggestion, as the people who have seen every ‘what-if’ and ‘worst case’ insurance scenario come true, is to get advice and pay for whatever you may need. You won’t be grateful for that small reduction in premium when your vehicle is out of action and your cheap policy leaves you stranded and out-of-pocket!

What is insurance fraud?

Legally, ‘fraud’ is a form of theft based on deception – i.e. it involves lying (about anything) to gain something you wouldn’t otherwise be entitled to. Penalties range from a substantial fine to a 10-year prison term, and you can probably forget about insuring anything ever again, so it’s a risk not worth taking. Apart from the legal consequences, insurance fraud also pushes up premiums as insurers attempt to recover their costs.

The most common form of insurance fraud is called Opportunistic Fraud and involves the exaggeration of loss or damage when making a claim, or lying about the circumstances in which the damage occurred. Examples we’ve seen include:

–        “It was damaged in the storm. I guess it’s a write off.”

This car was bludgeoned with a golf ball in a sock to imitate hail damage.

–        “He backed into my car so I’m making a claim on his insurance.”

This uninsured car had about $5000 worth of damage and arrived at the workshop with scraps of kangaroo fur still attached. The third-party car, which was allegedly at fault, had a two-inch scratch on the rear bumper.

These were clearly deliberate attempts to make fraudulent claims, and neither succeeded. But by far the most frequent fraud attempt we see is this:

–        “Somebody must have hit me in the car park. I didn’t see it happen.”

This car usually shows telltale signs of impact with a pole, brick wall or letterbox.

The worst thing about this is that it’s completely unnecessary. The beauty of insuring your car is that you’re covered for accidental damage, even if you’re the only car involved.

So it’s worth remembering a few facts about how smash repairers and insurance companies work before you’re tempted to lie to them:

1. It’s perfectly okay to claim for an accidental impact, however silly the incident seems to you.
2. You can’t claim for malicious or intentionally caused damage.
3. Insurers know we’re human. Claiming for a ‘didn’t see the pole’ incident has the same affect on your policy as claiming for a ‘hit whilst parked’ incident – so it’s easier just to tell the truth!
4. Insurance companies have excellent systems in place to prevent insurance fraud, and they’ve seen every variety hundreds of times.
5. Honesty is important to your smash repairer too. We need to know what really happened so we can fix the damage properly.

For more information, or to see what else we’re up to, please follow us on Twitter or check our Facebook page.

Your car is valuable. It’s probably the biggest financial investment in your life, after your home.

But what’s more valuable is what’s inside your car (we’re talking about the people, not the leather seats). As smash repairers, we’ve seen the results of accidents on vehicles, drivers and passengers and we know that safety is the most important feature of any car!

And if you have children, there’s a lot more to consider than just seatbelts. Child car restraints are one of the most debated and contentious safety measures for families, and with good reason. Properly installed child restraints have been proven effective in preventing injuries to children in the event of a crash – but what does ‘properly installed’ mean? Are there different restraints for different types of cars? Does the age of the child matter or are size and weight more important? Should the restraint be rearward-facing or forward-facing? Does it matter which seat it’s on?

Thankfully there is help at hand! A number of organisations in the automotive industry, including the RAC, the NRMA, NTA, TAC and RTAC have come together to provide a guide for choosing the right safety restraint for your child. It explains the different types of restraints and can help you understand the government’s Child Car Restraint Regulations, which came into effect in 2010.

The basics are straightforward and can be found at http://rac.com.au/Advocacy/Child-car-restraints.aspx. To start, you should check your car. Some older cars do not have the anchor points required for child restraints, or they’re not suited to positioning the restraint safely. Others, particularly those used for carrying groups of children, have side-facing seats which can’t accommodate child safety restraints. The new laws are strict, and do not allow children under four to travel in a vehicle which can’t be properly fitted with safety restraints, though special allowances are made for children 4-7 years in these cases.

Next, always make sure you’re buying a restraint that meets Australian Standard AS 1754 – it’s a legal requirement. You should also make sure that it will fit in your car in the rearward-facing position without squashing the people in the front seats into the dashboard! And it should be practical – if you’re going to be moving it a lot, it should be light and easy to re-install properly, every time.

In terms of installation:

Children up to six months old:

• Must be in a rearward-facing restraint with built-in five-point safety harness.
• Are not permitted in the front seat of vehicles with two or more rows of seats.

Children from six months to four years old:

• Must be in a rear or forward-facing restraint with a built-in five-point harness.
• Are not permitted in the front seat of vehicles with two or more rows of seats.

Children from four to seven years old:

• Must be in a forward-facing restraint with a built-in safety harness or a booster seat with a lap sash seatbelt (this means a standard fitted seatbelt, not a lap-only belt) or a child safety harness.
• If sitting in the front seat must be placed in an approved child restraint or booster seat.
• Are not permitted in the front seat unless all rear seats are occupied by children less than seven years old.

The guide also takes into account the fact that every child and every car is different. Recommendations for different types of restraints are based on height as well as age, so you can always be sure that you’re installing the right safety restraint for your child.

We recommend that you get as much information as possible before buying a child safety restraint. The following links will give you any other information you need about choosing and positioning a restraint, and about the new laws around the safety of children in cars:

The Office of Road Safety
http://www.ors.wa.gov.au/Documents/childcarrestraints-faq-newrules.aspx

RoadWise
www.childcarrestraints.com.au

Kidsafe WA
www.kidsafewa.com.au

For more information, or to see what else we’re up to, please follow us on Twitter or check our Facebook page.

How many cars do you think are on the road today, worldwide?

The answer is maybe not so surprising: somewhere between 850 million and 1 billion cars are in use today globally. Given our current world population of 7 billion, that would mean roughly 12 cars per hundred people, if car ownership were distributed evenly (which it isn’t).

But these numbers are of course not static. A recent report by the International Energy Agency shows that, while population growth is predicted to stay reasonably constant over the next twenty years, car ownership is expected to double, particularly in developing countries like India and China. These changes mean that over 1.7 billion cars are predicted to be on the road by 2035.

So in the 130 years or so since the first cars were commercially produced, we’ve bought nearly one billion, but it’s only going to take us around twenty years to double that number.

In terms of demand on production and fuel, it’s a colossal challenge that most countries are yet to address. It’s predicted that energy and resource markets will change dramatically and that transport infrastructure will become a major concern for governments worldwide.

But even if we meet the demand for these vehicles and manage to get the roads and infrastructure in place to make it safe and practical to use them, as smash repairers we have to ask – who is going to repair them all?

Cars, like all machines, need maintenance. And the more of them we make, the more of them are going to need repairs after running into kerbs, poles, mailboxes and each other. This wouldn’t be such a problem if the repairs industry were growing in step with the automotive industry, but it’s not. Numbers of apprenticeships have fallen by 50% over the last twenty years, and the demands on smash repairers are only increasing – it’s the main reason we make sure our team are always up to date with the best qualifications and latest technology. It’s also why we make sure we’re involved in representing our industry in organisations like the Motor Trade Association Committee and the SGIO Repairer Committee.

Cars have become much more than a way to get around. We take them for granted as part of our lifestyle but we need to recognise the impact they’re having and plan for the future accordingly – and we need to support the industries and the people who keep them on the road!

For more information, or to see what else we’re up to, please follow us on Twitter or check our Facebook page.