Collision-repair industry urges higher labor rates; insurers and advisory board approach debated
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Summary
Collision-repair trade groups and shop owners told a Massachusetts legislative committee that prevailing auto body labor reimbursement rates—commonly reported in the mid‑$40s per hour—are too low to sustain businesses and keep pace with vehicle technology.
Owners and trade groups representing Massachusetts collision repair facilities urged lawmakers to adopt data-driven mechanisms and stronger oversight to raise auto body labor reimbursement rates, saying current payments are insufficient to cover training, equipment and high-tech repairs.
Lucky Papageorge, executive director of the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers of Massachusetts, told the committee that Massachusetts collision-repair labor rates have been "suppressed for over 30 years" and that shops statewide are averaging about $45 per hour while national averages reported to the committee were closer to $70 per hour. "You can't get a bicycle fixed for less than $100 an hour in the state," Papageorge said, and argued low rates threaten shop viability and potentially public safety by discouraging proper repairs.
David Brown, Fixed Operations Director for the Bill DeLuca family of dealerships and a member of the auto body labor rate advisory board, said body‑shop labor at his shop averages about $44 an hour and that mechanical work in some cases is reimbursed at much higher rates by insurers. He warned that technicians are "aging out" and that the industry is not attracting new entrants at present wage levels.
Several bills were discussed: House Bills 12 60 and 12 85, which supporters said would allow repair facilities to present documentation of prevailing market rates for consideration, and Senate Bill 7 97, which supporters described as strengthening the auto body labor rate advisory board by requiring regular (biannual) meetings and annual recommendations to the legislature and the commissioner of insurance. Supporters said those measures would replace a market shaped by contractual, insurer-driven rates with a transparent, prevailing-market standard tied to what consumers willingly pay out of pocket.
Some insurance-industry testimony earlier in the hearing noted that market rates vary and that several insurers have raised rates in recent years. Christopher Stark, executive director of the Massachusetts Insurance Federation, cautioned against creating a statutory floor for labor rates and said the industry has a range of rates with no single uniform rate adopted across companies.
Supporters asked the committee to report the bills favorably; no committee votes on the labor-rate bills were recorded in the hearing transcript.