PDR estimate writing: from your hail scope to an insurance estimate

PDR estimate writing is the work of taking a paintless dent repair scope and writing it into an insurance estimate the carrier can review and pay. During a storm, a PDR operation can repair more cars in a week than it can write estimates for in three. Scoping goes quickly, whoever does it: a tech, a scoper, an estimator or the owner. Writing the estimate takes longer, and estimates written in a hurry are the ones that come back short.

Most operations end up choosing between hiring an estimator who has nothing to write once the season ends, pulling a manager off production to write files, or letting the files stack up while the cars wait.

Sending the writing out is another option. You send the scope and photographs, and the completed estimate comes back in your own estimating platform, under your name, ready for you to send to the carrier. You don't commit to any volume ahead of time, and you don't pay for a writer between storms.

This is overflow support for operations that repair well and would rather not write. It does not replace an in-house estimator. Your customers and your carrier relationships stay with you.

You don't have to forecast anything. Call when you know you're deploying, when you get there, or when the first twenty cars are already in the lot. There is no block to book, no contract and no number of vehicles to commit to. A heads up helps me plan my week, and that is all it is.

Turnaround is 24 hours from a complete set of photographs and documentation. At catastrophe volume it is 24 to 72 hours. If your week is going to land on the long end of that, I tell you before you send the cars.

One person writes every file. Christopher Johnson writes each estimate personally, so car forty in a deployment has the same line notes, labor premise and documentation standard as car one. Appraisers often review a deployment's files as a batch, and consistent files are easier for them to approve. On volume, tell me what you're looking at and I'll tell you what I can turn and when.

If more writers are added, I train them, and I review every estimate and supplement before it goes back to you.

When an appraiser doesn't understand a non-standard line I wrote, I explain it to them. Two common examples are adjacent panel repair, such as a roof rail damaged by roof removal and replacement, and taking the doors off for proper paint and clear coat coverage. If a line genuinely isn't supportable, I withdraw it rather than argue it.

Mobile Tech RX. Export the estimate and send it with the photographs, and I write the insurance estimate from the export. There is no software integration between Storm Rider Solutions and Mobile Tech RX. Mobile Tech RX is a trademark of its owner, and Storm Rider Solutions is not affiliated with it. The PDR estimate translation page covers this in more detail.

Other scoping exports. Same process. The scope gives me dent counts, panel sizes and repair difficulty, and the photographs show the rest.

Hail matrices and scope sheets, printed or handwritten. It only has to be legible. A matrix filled out on a clipboard in a parking lot works.

CCC ONE or Mitchell files. Send an estimate already on the car and I write from it or rewrite it, whichever the file needs.

Photographs with nothing scoped yet. That works too, but dent counts by panel and a note on your inspection conditions (PDR light, shop lighting or outdoors) make the file stronger.

A carrier estimate you believe is short. Send it with the denial or short-pay paperwork and I write the supplement against it. See collision supplements.

• Platform labor and refinish times. The scope says what the repair is. The estimate uses the times CCC ONE or Mitchell assigns to each operation, instead of one typed-in lump.
• Operation sequence. Operations go in the order CCC ONE or Mitchell expects, so overlap and included operations calculate the same way they do on the carrier's side.
• Line notes. Each operation carries the manufacturer procedure or labor premise behind it. Line notes are the biggest difference between a file that gets approved and one that gets a phone call.
• Conventional conversion. When the scope flags a panel as too creased to push, the estimate turns it into body labor, paint time and materials.
• ADAS calibration. Checked against the VIN and the operations written on the estimate.
• Recoverable materials. Listed on their own lines instead of being absorbed into a labor number.
• Inspection conditions. Dents counted under poor light get counted low, and the estimate inherits the shortfall. The file notes what was photographed and how it was lit.

On a hail file, this is usually where the missing money is.

Estimates and supplements use one credit per file. Credits never expire and there are no monthly minimums. Estimate audits and scrubbing are $120 per file. The full pricing table is on the home page.

• PDR estimate translation: a Mobile Tech RX export or other scope written into a full estimate in CCC ONE or Mitchell.
• PDR estimating for collision shops: PDR lines written on the same estimate as the conventional repair, blends and R&I.
• Remote auto estimating services: estimates, supplements and audits for collision and hail.
• Collision supplements: written against a carrier estimate you believe is short.
• Estimate audits and scrubbing: your file reviewed line by line before you send it, $120 per file.