The race for electric vehicles has certainly started, with two core catalysts for the change. First, people’s and companies’ commitment to protecting the environment, as well as looking for cheaper, sustainable driving options. Second, the UK government’s target for zero-emission vehicles by 2035. With these points in mind, National are already putting measures into place to support our clients and their customers in the EV revolution.
What Are The UK Government’s EV Targets?
The UK government has extended their original roadmap to support families and manufacturers switching from diesel or petrol to electric. As of January 2024, the Government’s projection for electric vehicles consists of:
- 80% of new cars sold to be zero emissions by 2030
- 70% of new vans sold to be zero emissions by 2030
- By 2035, all new cars and vans sold will have zero emissions
- 300,000 EV charge-points by 2030
Responding To EV Sales
You would have noticed the increase in electric chargers and dedicated charging spaces appearing in car parks, service stations, and supermarkets. Perhaps you’ve seen cars plugged into homes or taxis and buses running fully electric. At National, we keep an eye on industry insights and have seen a considerable increase in sales for Hybrid (HEV), Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV) and Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV).
More electric vehicles on the road mean more EV repairers are required for specialised services, MOTs or repairs. By keeping up-to-date with these stats, we can put essential processes in place to help our EV customers. This includes partnering with EV repair centres and ensuring their technicians are fully qualified.
Supporting EV Fleets
Electric vehicle sales within the Fleet market are also rapidly growing, with over 1-in-4 ordered vehicles being pure electric (BEV) or Benefit-in-kind (BIK). Not only do these offer tax relief for businesses, but with the increase of nationwide charging points, companies are now more relaxed about drivers reaching deadlines.
Expanding Our Network
Along with the government targets, many manufacturers have set out their own ambitions to invest in the electric vehicle industry. With more brands extending their EV offering, they’re providing a broader and more affordable option for users, resulting in increased retail sales. This, in turn, means we need to ensure our trusted network of repair centres not only has the capabilities to work on various brands but they also have the capacity and facilities to do so.
At National Accident Repair Group, we’re committed to ensuring our network of repairers can provide our clients with UK cover for these specialist vehicles. We already have 183 locations with either IMI, City & Guilds level 3, or Manufacturer qualifications for high-voltage vehicle repairs. This means we can provide our clients with a full UK postcode cover and a great customer experience.
Our EV Commitment
To fulfil our EV commitment, National works with Thatcham Research to offer our network a comprehensive training program to make all staff ‘high voltage aware’. Thatcham Research is dedicated to understanding the opportunities and risks associated with new vehicle technology, and together, we believe we can make a difference in the EV repair industry.
Dean Lander, head of repair services at Thatcham Research, comments:
“We recognise the immense challenges facing repair networks with the growth of electric vehicles and are working closely with the industry to develop guidance, awareness and training on managing and repairing EVs. It is great to see this commitment by National to develop a repair network with trained and qualified technicians that will ensure both the safety of technicians and safe and effective repairs.”
Malcolm Banner, National’s MD, commented:
“National has an ongoing commitment to our clients to provide a comprehensive service level, ensuring all customers receive a first-class service. National, along with Thatcham, will offer our network a comprehensive training program ensuring that all staff are high voltage aware. National’s Intelligent Deployment System (IDS) has the ability to identify and deploy these vehicles to the appropriate repair site.”
With innovative and positive actions already in place, National is ready to lead the way in electric vehicle repairs, investing significantly in this area of repair expertise.
We’re incredibly proud to be a finalist for the Insurance Times – Claims Excellence Award. This reflects the team’s incredible hard work and dedication behind the scenes and the innovative minds who persistently review and implement successful solutions to streamline and improve the insurance claims process.
Who Are Insurance Times?
Insurance Times is a well-respected organisation that monitors and analyses businesses that are brokers, insurers and service suppliers. They provide up-to-date reports about a company’s various services with the aim of ensuring that customers are receiving honest, exceptional and fully comprehensive services.
What is the Claims Excellence Award?
The Claims Excellence Award is given to the company or individual who is actively making positive changes within the claims sector. To not only push this industry forward but to ultimately provide a better service to their customers.
“Receiving the news we have been selected as finalists for the Insurance Claims Excellence Award is an incredible achievement. Combined with our nominations for technology, we have a lot to celebrate! We are constantly driving for the ultimate digital experience within the claims industry, and we’re excited to implement even more effective and efficient solutions.”
Malcolm Banner, National Accident Repair Group
Born from the idea to bring an innovative and highly customer-focused approach to UK-wide accident repair, the company launched in 2009 and was joined shortly after by now Managing Director Malcolm Banner in 2010.
From the origins of ten regional repair groups joining forces to tender nationally, National has positively and effectively adapted to ever-changing factors, from industry delays and increased costs to the advancements in digital technology and EV vehicles. Our intuition has enabled us to steadily expand over the years, meeting our ongoing aspirations whilst maintaining strong and trusted relationships – all of which we continue to do today.
With operations led by our high-tech Doncaster offices and marketing communications based in Northampton, we have grown organically, enabling us to evolve and widen our service offerings with more room to flourish.
We continue to develop our award-winning software, delivering drastically improved customer and client journeys and uniquely providing the flexibility of self-serve; regional repair deployment has elevated our business. These improvements and bringing together over 450 bodyshops and repair centres across the UK to work with National have given us some of our proudest moments.
We’re proud to say that National is so much more than accident repair. We are a dedicated services and solutions provider with some of the industry’s leading blue-chip insurance clients partnering with us. We’ve also expanded into HGV, LCV, and electric/hybrid to meet our client’s needs, but we know there’s still lots more to do, and future changes are only just around the corner. We firmly believe the key to giving our clients and their subsequent customers the best experience is innovation and progress, ahead of market need, and this is something we will always strive to deliver on.
The industry as a whole is constantly changing; the future is technology and highly eco-conscious. With this in mind, we intend to grow in size (both in our offices and our repairers’ network), knowledge, experience and support to remain leaders in motor repair claims and trusted partners for insurers and repair centres.
We’re incredibly proud of everything we’ve achieved, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for National.
The electric car debate is ramping up, with several recent announcements around the number of cars owned, electric vs petrol/diesel, maintenance and repairs, and how our infrastructures can adapt to boost the take-up of EV vehicles.
Numerous brands are announcing which models will evolve into electric or hybrid cars. For example, Groupe PSA pledged their Peugeot Expert, Citroen Dispatch, and Vauxhall Vivaro will be available in all-electric variants, with all new models launched offering all-electric and/or plug-in hybrids. PSA has made significant steps to becoming all-electric and is still on track to have all passenger cars and LCVs electrified by 2025.
So, what does this all mean for the accident repair industry?
With more and more brands providing electric or hybrid options, we must be prepared for its impact on the entire repair cycle. Motor repair claims are already a competitive market, and at National, we work tirelessly to keep pushing solutions from improving the customer experience to software and technology continually bettering the process. With the vast array of brands and age ranges of cars on the roads, and as more auto brands follow suit of PSA, repair centres need to be ready for anything that comes through the door.
How are National supporting EV repair claims?
We understand how quickly this technology is evolving and being implemented across the motor industry. We have quickly enhanced the knowledge and experience of our trusted network, with over 300 repair centres fully equipped with electric and hybrid capabilities. With strict minimum standards in place for technicians, repairers that offer EV services must have level 2 electric vehicles and ATA qualifications in order to work on these vehicles.
The Benefits
By doing this, National is able to extend electric and hybrid repair services to their insurer clients, too, further expanding their reach and with the unique position of being able to deploy a job to any postcode and repair centre across the UK. Customer experience is kept positive, cycle times are kept down, and overall disruption is reduced, regardless of the type of engine involved.
Judged by panels made up of experts from the fleet industry, including car manufacturers, fleet managers and fleet suppliers, the awards are a key fixture in the automotive industry awards calendar. We are very proud to have been highly commended for the Innovation Award for our weDeploy technology.
weDeploy is a cloud-based software solution fleet operators use to instantly deploy a damaged vehicle into the National repair network. From First-Notification-of-Loss (FNOL), the client can complete deployment in less than 2 minutes. Furthermore, once a deployment has been confirmed, the weDeploy system will send the correct claim information to the chosen repairer, often based on location. The application is fully customisable by the client, from branding the screens to integrating weDeploy into any other software application the client has.
The application harnesses the power of the ‘Intelligent Deployment System’ (IDS) module within National’s system, with real-time information on each of its 400+ BS 10125 accredited repairers across the UK. This is perfect for when National control the deployment and repair of the vehicle. Our system successfully deploys vehicle repairs to any given network in an automated and efficient way, digitalising the deployment journey and saving manual call centre tasks.
As one of the five categories awarded in the Techies classification, the Innovation Award recognises advances in innovation from apps to vehicles, and with award-winning software at the heart of what National do, being honoured for representing this is an accolade we will always strive for.
At National, we are consistently looking for new processes and technological developments to support the industry. Our mission to make accident repair easier, safer and more accessible will continue to take centre stage in our operations to be the repairer of choice.
Click here to learn more about our weDeploy software, or contact the National team today to implement our award-winning solution into your day-to-day processes.
National are pleased to announce the award of a contract with Direct Line Group (DLG) that incorporates motability.
Our in-house team will support the 20 Direct Line Group Auto Services centres across the UK. By working together, we can provide an efficient and premium service to customers whilst implementing solutions to reduce the claims and repair journey time.
Who Are Direct Line Group?
Direct Line Group are one of the largest insurance companies in the UK. They cover a range of insurances from home and pets to commercial and travel. They’re also experts in motor insurance, and this is where National will work with the DLG team for a smoother motor claims experience for their customers.
David Mills, Head of Motor Vehicle Fulfilment, said:
“We’re very pleased to continue working with National Accident Repair Group for vehicle repairs. We all share the same ethos of offering our customers excellent service, quality in repair and fast repair cycle times.
Malcolm Banner, Managing Director at National, added:
“We’re delighted that National has been selected to support DLG with their desire to minimise cycle times. The National network model, with multiple sites in urban areas and automated repair progression management, is fundamental in providing minimal key to key repair times, particularly at times of work surge.”
We’re excited to share that National Accident Repair Group have won the Business Car’s Technology and Innovation Award in recognition of our iDeploy product and digital platform.
Who Are Business Car?
Business Car is one of the UK’s largest fleet publications that research and work with experts and companies across the industry. Competition within this category was fierce from revered technology companies such as Jarmma and Trakm8, but iDeploy, the new digital self-serve app, scooped the award.
What is iDeploy?
iDeploy enables customers to book their own repairs online with just a few simple clicks. This allows fleet drivers to conveniently and quickly choose when and where their vehicle is repaired, 24 hours per day, seven days per week, from their phone, tablet or laptop. It also provides real-time access to National’s network of more than 450 bodyshops.
Malcolm Banner, Managing Director for National Accident Repair Group said;
“It’s a fantastic honour to win the Technology and Innovation Award and is an outstanding achievement for National. It’s fantastic to get the recognition for our efforts.”
Barry Nyblen, Sales Director for National who collected the award said;
“It’s an exciting time here at National, and we look forward to coming back to the Business Car Awards with our latest innovations. We’d like to thank our team and everyone who has supported us, from our clients to our network partners.”
