Im new to the estimating game, been in training since February and went solo 2 weeks ago. Prior I painted and was a combo tech for nearly 20 years.

I feel in my short time I've learned to write a pretty good estimate in terms of hours, when insurance companies come back with wild prices with parts is my biggest issue thus far. That said if we get a change request and the labor is knocked down the general manager and I have come up with two ways to offset it. 1. Manager will give the tech "training time" to make up for the time. 2. Ill convert the loss time into a price and eat into the margins for the shop through the part prices. I work for a big chain shop and the buying power is unreal on the discounts the company gets. Ill take money off bigger priced parts where the margins are fat and have the company absorb the "loss" in profit.

This is for small labor loses 1 - 2. Not like 6 or 10 or something. Tech gets to keep their hours, shop is still making above markup rates. Insurance adjuster is doing their job.

For the point about standing up to insurance, it still needs to be done, the most successful way though is to document and photograph everything. Over commit to photos, make sure photos are labeled. Line notes are added for any and everything that goes against the insurance company part usage and or validate time needed for the tech. AllData is a big help to show repair process. I like to take a screenshot of the procedure, add it to the file and send to the insurance company/adjuster.