How Independent Shops Win Work Without Leaning on DRPs

Why one program is a risk

Direct repair programs keep a lot of shops busy, and plenty of good shops run on them. The problem isn’t the program. It’s how much of your board depends on one or two of them.

On a program, someone else writes part of your business plan: the rates, the parts rules, the cycle time targets, the scores you’re graded on and the reporting. When the insurer changes the terms or the volume, your schedule changes with it, and you didn’t get a vote.

The trend lines make that dependence riskier. CCC’s 2026 Crash Course report found repairable claim volume fell 9.7% across all coverages in 2025, while total losses hit a record 23.1% of all claims. Fewer repairable claims means a program can send fewer cars even when you do everything right.

The same report found DRPs accounted for 46.7% of appraisals by inspection method in 2025, up more than a point. Insurers are leaning on programs and photo estimating, and that pulls more of the routing decision toward the insurer.

Then there’s the size of who you’re up against. Focus Advisors estimated about 30,000 collision shops in the US in mid-2025, around 23,000 of them single locations. The five largest operators held 13.3% of shops but about 31.7% of revenue. Independents compete for what’s left, and the shops that control their own demand are the ones that choose their work.

The goal isn’t zero program work. It’s no single source that can empty your bays with one email.

Where driver-choice work comes from

Drivers decide more often than most owners think. In CCC’s “Moments of Truth” study with Magid (2,400 policyholders, reported in October 2024), nearly one-third of consumers said an insurer’s recommendation was the deciding factor in where they took their car. About two-thirds decided on something else, such as past experience, friends and family, price, location or reviews.

Some drivers never file a claim at all. A LendingTree survey of 2,000 US consumers in June 2024 found 39% of insured drivers who had an accident or incident paid for repairs without filing a claim. 44% said their deductible was higher than the cost, and 42% didn’t want their insurance to go up.

So the work you control comes from a handful of doors:

• Past customers and the people they send you.
• Drivers searching Google after a wreck, choosing from the map and the reviews.
• Customer-pay jobs: scuffs, dents and repairs under the deductible.
• Dealers that don’t run their own body shop, or whose body shop is full.
• Tow operators who decide where an unclaimed car goes.
• Local fleets: plumbers, HVAC vans, delivery trucks, landscapers.
• Independent insurance agents, who get asked “where should I take it?” every week.
• OEM certification networks, if you hold a certification for that make.

Every door on that list is something you can work on this month. None of them depends on an insurer’s routing.

Win the search after a wreck

The driver who decides for themselves usually does it on a phone, from the map. Google’s help page on local ranking says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence, that complete and accurate information helps, and that “more reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.” It also says there’s no way to pay for a better local ranking.

That makes your Google Business Profile the front door for driver-choice work. Get the basics right: Auto body shop as the primary category, true hours, real photos of your building, bays and finished cars, and every repair you want listed under services. Our Google Business Profile guide for collision shops walks through it line by line.

Reviews do most of the persuading. BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, 74% look for reviews written in the last three months, and 47% won’t use a business with fewer than 20 reviews. Ask every customer at delivery, program customers included, and reply to every review.

Paid search fills the gap while reviews build. AE Collision Center in Tampa is a clear example of work that came straight from drivers who searched and called. We rebuilt the shop’s Google Ads around local collision repair searches, corrected call and form tracking and built a website with real reviews and before-and-after repairs.

In August 2026, month one, the account spent $1,187.27, and the shop reports 9 closed jobs and about $40,000 in repair revenue. In September, month two, the shop reports 15 new cars, $117K in repair revenue from Collision Catalyst jobs alone and $54K take-home. Joniel’s team answered the inquiries, wrote the estimates and closed the jobs. The AE Collision Center case study has the full numbers.

Explain the driver’s choice plainly

The moment that decides a lot of non-program work is a short one: the driver says, “My insurance told me to go to their shop.” What your front desk says next either keeps the car or sends it away.

A good answer is calm, short and true:

• “That’s common. Insurance companies have shops they work with. It’s your car, and it’s your choice where it’s fixed. If you’d like us to do it, we’ll work with your insurance company on the claim. Want to come by at 3:30 so we can look at it?”

Use the last line only if it’s true for your shop. Don’t knock the insurer or its shops, and don’t quote laws at the driver. Keep it about their car, your work and a time on the calendar. Our front desk phone script has the full call flow.

Then put the same answers on your website, because drivers check before they call:

• Do I have to use the shop my insurer recommends?
• Will it take longer if I come to you?
• Who handles the adjuster and the supplements?
• When do I pay the deductible?
• Who sets up the rental?

Answer each in two or three sentences, the way your best CSR would say it at the counter. A driver who reads those answers at 9 p.m. calls you at 8 a.m. already decided.

Treat customer-pay as real work

The 39% from the LendingTree survey are real jobs, and many shops treat them as an interruption. A customer-pay driver wants three things: a price in writing, a date, and confidence the repair won’t turn into a surprise.

Make it easy to say yes:

• Offer photo estimates by text, with a clear list of the shots you need: four corners, the damage straight on and at an angle, the VIN and the odometer.
• Give a written price after you see the car, and say what could change it, such as a sensor behind the bumper.
• Slot short jobs between heavy hits, so a bumper doesn’t wait three weeks behind a frame job.
• Ask every customer-pay driver for a review. They’re often the most grateful customers you have.

Customer-pay is also where social ads can work, because the driver isn’t in a hurry. Our guide to Facebook ads for body shops covers offers, creative and a 30-day test with a stop rule.

Build relationships that send cars

Referral partners send work on purpose, and each one can be worth more than a month of ads. Treat them like accounts, not favors.

Give every partner a single named person at your shop. Track each one as its own RO source, so you know which relationships are worth a visit every month and which aren’t.

Do the math on one relationship before you dismiss it. Say a local fleet runs 40 vans and sends you six repairs a year at an average RO of $3,500 (example numbers). That’s $21,000 a year in repair revenue from one phone call that went well.

Track the mix every month

You can’t manage what you don’t count. Make the RO source field required at check-in, with fixed choices: each program by name, insurer referral without a program, repeat customer, friend or family, Google Maps, Google ad, website, Facebook, dealer, tow, fleet, agent.

Then build one table a month. Here’s an example with made-up numbers:

Read it for two things. First, concentration: in this example one program supplies 45% of the cars, which is a lot of the schedule riding on one relationship. Second, gross profit per RO by source, which tells you what each door is actually worth to the shop, not just how busy it keeps you.

For paid channels, add the spend and divide it by booked ROs, so you know what each job cost to win. We break that math down with real numbers in what one booked job really cost a Tampa shop.

Shift the mix without a cliff

Don’t drop a program to make a point. Build the work you control first, then decide program by program with numbers in hand.

1. Months 1 to 3: make the source field required, fix the Google listing, start asking every customer for a review, and fix the phones. These cost little and lift every source.
2. Months 4 to 6: add paid search in a tight radius for the repairs you want, plus one customer-pay offer. Judge both on cost per booked job.
3. Months 7 to 9: work the partner list. Visit dealers, tow operators and fleets, and track each as its own source.
4. Months 10 to 12: compare each program’s gross profit per RO and cycle time requirements against your driver-choice work. Renegotiate, keep or step back from one program at a time, only when the work you control can carry the gap.

Say a shop starts the year with 62% of its ROs from two programs and wants that under 50% (example numbers). It doesn’t need fewer program cars to get there. It needs more cars from the doors it controls.

If you’d like a second set of eyes on your mix, our free 20-minute shop review ends with the three fixes worth doing first, yours to keep.

What to do this week

1. Make the RO source field required at check-in, with fixed choices including each program by name.
2. Pull the last 90 days of ROs and work out each source’s share and gross profit per RO.
3. Search “body shop near me” on your phone from three spots in your area and screenshot where you show.
4. Rehearse the “my insurance told me to go to their shop” answer with your front desk until it sounds natural.
5. List five referral partners you don’t work with yet, and put one visit on the calendar.

Questions owners ask

Will insurers still pay if the car comes to us instead of a program shop?

A covered repair is still a covered repair, but expect more back-and-forth. The insurer may send an appraiser or ask for photos, and your estimator will negotiate the estimate and supplements directly. Build that time into your schedule and your follow-up with the driver.

How long does it take to build driver-choice work?

It depends on where you start. Fixing the Google listing and the phones can show up within weeks, and paid search can bring calls in the first month. Reviews, website pages and partner relationships build over months, which is why the plan above runs a full year.

Should we drop our programs?

Not as a first move. Build the work you control, measure gross profit per RO and cycle time by source for a few months, and then decide one program at a time. Plenty of shops keep a program they like and still cut their dependence on it.

Sources

1. CCC: Crash Course 2026 report press release (2026)
2. Collision Repair Magazine: CCC repair trends, fewer claims and rising complexity reshape shop workloads (2026)
3. Repairer Driven News: CCC report shows shift to DRP and AI appraisals (2026)
4. Repairer Driven News: Focus Advisors mid-year review (2025)
5. Repairer Driven News: CCC Moments of Truth study coverage (2024)
6. LendingTree: Insurance repairs survey (2024)
7. BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey (2026)
8. Google: Tips to improve your local ranking on Google (2026)