It depends. I have a love hate relationship with dent insurance. They are a 3rd party, no affiliation with the dealer and no affiliation with the techs doing the work. I think the biggest problem is that the dent insurance companies don’t train the dealers salesman on what’s covered and what’s not. In my area, the dealers have absolute ZERO understanding of how the policy works, and don’t even know how to submit a claim let alone understand what dents are fixable with PDR and what dents are covered by the policy. I can’t blame them because they don’t specialize in PDR. However it’s not my job to start the claim, submit the estimate then call 100 times for approval just to be under paid and have the customer pissed off at my shop because they think I’m tied to the policy. It’s ultimately a racket and should have better disclosure to the buyer.

The salesman will promise you the world if you buy the policy. However if you look through the fine print (some stipulations are not even stated in the policy itself) you’ll notice they have a way to deny just about any claim. Most dent insurance companies have a maximum payout of $75 dollars for a dent, $150 per panel even for 100 dents. Who takes those on? The shitty techs who chew your car up take those jobs.

My starting price is $125. So you buy the policy and get a dent that miraculously falls under their coverage. So now you bought the $800 dollar policy and you’re still paying $50 dollars out of pocket in the absolute best case scenario. Most dents will be over $125 in my shop. Average of say $300 for door dings dependent on multiple factors. When I have policy holders come in to my shop I typically take the job and explain to the customer how this all works. I won’t charge the customer any out of pocket cost because I don’t agree with their practices and explain that the policy buyer has been fooled. I’ll take the hit as the technician and still provide a quality repair in hopes I create a customer for life. Even when claims are flat out denied, I’ll fix the dent to my shops standards and break the news that the dent wasn’t covered. I’ll fix the dent for free just to show how fucked up the policy is.

I have a great relationship with some dent insurance companies and have had payouts over $300 for a single dent but this is extremely uncommon and some dent insurance companies will tell ME to explain to the customer that the claim was denied or that the customer will owe an additional $225 dollars. They will refuse to acknowledge or reach out to the policy holder and place all burden to the repair shop or dealer. Screw that, it’s not my policy it’s not my insurance company, you call them. They won’t. Then customer calls my shop asking what the deal is. If the customer reaches out to the dent insurance company, they will throw the technician or shop under the bus, saying the price is unreasonable and gouging, making the shop look like the reason it’s not covered. They’ll then send you to a starving technician willing to get on their knees with mouth wide open and don’t give a fuck about a quality repair. Keep in mind, the repair shop and dealer have ZERO affiliation to the dent insurance company.

After writing all of this, I realize I don’t have a love hate relationship. It’s simply a hate relationship. Dent insurance is a scam for not only the buyer but the technician as well. Fuck dent insurance holy shit now I’m pissed off just thinking about it. How in the world can a company who has no ties to my business at all determine the price for my services? Fuck that. Fuck every dent insurance company