Remote auto estimating services for collision and hail repair shops

A complete repair estimate written from your photographs and documentation, for hail, PDR or collision. See CCC ONE estimates for how files are written in your own account, and PDR estimate writing if you run a PDR company.

Written against an estimate you already have or a carrier's estimate. You can send a scope sheet, a Mobile Tech RX export, a CCC ONE or Mitchell file, or photographs only. Every added operation is line noted with its reasoning. More on collision supplements and PDR estimate translation from Mobile Tech RX exports.

An estimate audit is a line-by-line review of your file before you submit it. I find what is missing and why it is supportable, and I write the supplement for it. Estimate audits are $120 per file. See estimate audits and scrubbing.

When an appraiser does not understand a non-standard line I wrote, I explain the reasoning to them. I do not send the file to the carrier or follow up on it. Details and an example are below.

Estimate and supplement writing for hail claims, with status updates when the file is received, when it is written, and when it is placed in the drive for your shop to send. Your shop runs its own claims. See hail claim management.

A remote auto estimator writes the repair estimate for a damaged vehicle without being at the vehicle. The shop sends photographs, the VIN, measurements or dent counts, and any carrier paperwork.

The estimator works out every operation the repair needs, applies the labor and refinish times, adds the materials and access operations, writes a line note on each operation so the appraiser can follow the reasoning, and delivers the finished estimate or supplement in the shop's estimating system.

Yes. Remote estimating and virtual estimating are the same thing: the estimate is written from photographs and documents instead of at the vehicle. Storm Rider Solutions calls it remote estimating, and some shops and carriers call it virtual estimating. The work and the finished file are the same either way.

No. Storm Rider Solutions is a remote estimating service, not estimating software. You send photographs and documentation, and I write the file in your own CCC ONE or Mitchell account. There is nothing to install, no seat to license and nothing new for your staff to learn.

Shops that search for hail or collision estimating software are often short on estimator time, not on software. If that is your situation, a service helps and a second platform does not. The hail estimating software page explains what Easy Shop, our production management software, does and does not do.

• Shops whose estimators are already at capacity.
• Shops working a hail catastrophe with more vehicles than writers.
• PDR companies that repair well but do not want to write estimates.
• Single-estimator shops that lose writing time to production.
• Shops that want a second set of eyes on files before they submit them.

It is overflow help for your estimators. It does not replace an in-house estimator.

Yes, and I would much rather write under your own CCC ONE login. The file then belongs to you and matches your profiles, rates and carrier agreements. You give me limited user access, and the estimate shows as your document, under your shop name.

Mitchell works the same way. If you write in Mitchell, I write in your Mitchell.

If you have no estimating software at all, I write the file in Storm Rider's own CCC ONE and deliver it complete. That is the fallback. A file written under your own login is the better option for you.

Anything that documents the vehicle.

• Mobile Tech RX exports and other scoping exports.
• Printed or handwritten hail matrices and scope sheets.
• CCC ONE or Mitchell files, yours or the carrier's.
• Photographs with nothing written yet.
• A carrier estimate you believe is short, with the denial or short-pay paperwork.

There is no software integration with Mobile Tech RX. You export the file, and I write the insurance estimate from the export in CCC ONE or Mitchell. Mobile Tech RX is a trademark of its owner. Storm Rider Solutions is not affiliated with it.

I write from scratch or rewrite what you already have, whichever the file needs. On hail files, money is often missed because the first estimate was written quickly, or written in a scoping tool that was not built to produce the final insurance estimate.

Yes, both, and estimate audits. Initial estimates are written from your photographs and documentation. Collision supplements are written on files you already wrote or a carrier issued. In an estimate audit, I review your file line by line for missed operations before you submit it, and estimate audits are $120 per file.

Yes. Hail and PDR are the main specialty: panel dent counts, converting panels to conventional repair, roof and glass access, and catastrophe volume. Most of the work is remote hail estimating. Conventional collision estimates and supplements are written too.

PDR companies can read more on the PDR estimate writing page, and collision shops that take in hail work can read about PDR estimating for collision shops.

Turnaround is 24 hours from receipt of a complete set of photographs and documentation. At catastrophe (CAT) volume it is 24 to 72 hours, and you are told before you send the cars if a week will land on the long end.

Incomplete photo sets are the most common cause of delay, so the photo list is published on this page.

The first file is free: one vehicle, no card required, no contract. After that, estimates and supplements use credits, one credit per file: $150 à la carte, $1,400 for 10 credits ($140 per file), $3,300 for 25 credits ($132 per file), $6,250 for 50 credits ($125 per file) and $11,500 for 100 credits ($115 per file). Estimate audits are $120 per file.

Credits never expire, there are no monthly minimums, and the price is never a percentage of the estimate, so what I am paid does not depend on how large the estimate gets.

If you want a pack for audits only, contact Storm Rider Solutions and a package is built for you.

Every vehicle: four corner photographs; a straight-on photograph of every damaged panel; the VIN plate, door jamb label, paint code and odometer (photographed, not typed out); close photographs of each damaged area with something for scale; any prior damage or prior repair; and photographs of anything you could not open or position.

Hail files also need dent counts by panel and a note on your inspection conditions: a bay with a PDR light, shop lighting, or outdoors.

Paperwork: the claim or carrier documentation, and any estimate already written on the vehicle.

All 50 states. Remote estimating does not depend on where the shop is, because the estimate is written from the documentation, not at the vehicle.

Storm Rider Solutions is based in Plano, Texas, and does a lot of work in the hail belt: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri and Minnesota.

Christopher Johnson writes every file himself. Files are not passed to contractors or an offshore team.

He has 17 years writing estimates. He has been in collision repair since 2008 as a service writer, estimator, production manager, assistant manager, director of estimatics, and director of hail and collision operations, and has written hail since 2021. So far in 2026 he has written $6,997,188 in estimates and supplements on 663 vehicles (week of Oct 12, 2026).

Additional writers will be trained as volume grows. He has trained multiple hail estimators before, and no file goes out under a name he has not vouched for.

Every operation is line noted when it is written, with the manufacturer procedure or labor premise behind it, so the reasoning is already in the file.

For non-standard operations, if the appraiser does not understand a line, I explain it to them. Two common examples are adjacent panel repair, such as a roof rail that will be damaged when the roof is removed and replaced, and why the doors come off so the paint and clear coat cover properly.

If a line is not supportable, I withdraw it instead of arguing it. This is explaining the lines I wrote. I do not send the file to the carrier, follow up on it, or track the claim.

• I do not send estimates or supplements to the carrier. Your shop sends them, because it is better for the shop to be seen sending them.
• I do not follow up on or chase the file after it is delivered.
• I do not manage your shop's admin.

I don't run your shop. If your shop uses Easy Shop, your shop runs it.

Vehicle owner information is used only as far as the estimate needs it. Access to your estimating platform is limited to the users you authorize, and you can revoke it at any time. Information is never sold, shared with other shops, or used for marketing.