Nationwide Automates Auto Hail and Dent Repair

Ohio-based Nationwide Insurance has announced a more efficient way to estimate hail damage—Automated Mobile Hail Estimating. The program was piloted last year after a catastrophic event and will be rolled out across the country as an optional service in the coming months.

Nationwide says its the first carrier to implement this program as part of its claims strategy.

“This is a game-changing innovation that could significantly set the standard for how the industry identifies and estimates hail damage,” said Patrick Burnett, Nationwide associate vice president of material damage claims. “Our goal is to make the vehicle repair process as painless as possible by providing our customers with quick, accurate vehicle repair information on their time.”

The technology uses a number of state-of-the-art high-definition cameras and proprietary software to provide a number of advantages, including:

• Mobile location – The new tool is a mobile unit that is pulled with a truck and may be set up and operational in almost any environment within a few hours of reaching the site.
• Improved accuracy – State-of-the-art cameras quickly and precisely identify size of dents on a panel and extent of damage. The tool can count and differentiate the various sizes (nickel, dime, etc.) and then creates a splatter diagram of the vehicle showing each dent.
• Documentation – The information and splatter diagram, which can be compiled into a user-friendly report for customers, can be preserved and compared to any future claim.
• Simplicity – Nationwide is working toward system integration, which will allow hail data to feed into its estimating system, mitigating the work associated with taking a report and manually entering damage information into a separate estimating system.
• Expedited estimates – Enhanced accuracy in identifying damage means a reduction in supplemental estimates and total reduced time. The actual scanning process takes minutes, and the back-end printouts are available in less than 10 minutes significantly reducing the amount of time and resources necessary to finalize a complete hail estimate.

Source: Nationwide