# Who Picks The Repair Shop In California In California the vehicle owner chooses the repair facility. A carrier may recommend a network shop, decline to pay above a negotiated rate, and require documentation. It may not make the choice for you. On an RV that distinction matters, because most collision shops have never opened a bonded sidewall. ## The position in California, stated plainly The vehicle owner chooses the repair facility. That is the one settled point of law stated as fact anywhere on this site, and it is stated because it is the single most useful thing an owner can know during the first call after a loss. Every other sentence on these pages describes how a process works or what you can ask. This one is simply true. What follows from it is narrower than owners sometimes hope. Choosing the shop does not oblige a carrier to pay any rate the shop names, does not remove a reinspection, and does not change what a policy covers. The choice is about who performs the work, not about what the work costs or whether it is covered. It also does not require an argument. Most steering conversations are not attempts to override the right, they are scripts written for automotive claims being read aloud. Saying that you have chosen a shop, giving the shop's name and licence number, and asking the carrier to send the assignment there generally ends the topic in one call. ## What steering actually sounds like Rarely like an instruction. It sounds like helpfulness with a consequence attached. A list of network shops offered as the fast route. A remark that work at a non network shop takes longer to approve. A suggestion that the carrier cannot stand behind work it did not arrange. An offer to have the vehicle collected and taken somewhere convenient while you decide. Each of those sentences is defensible on its own and each of them shifts a decision. An owner in the first day after a collision, without a vehicle and without a plan, hears a requirement in a suggestion, and by the time anyone reconsiders, the coach is at a shop somebody else selected with a transport bill attached to it. The response that works is not confrontation. It is a question: is that a requirement or a recommendation, and can you put it in writing. A recommendation stays a recommendation once somebody has to type it. That single question resolves the great majority of these conversations without anybody raising a voice. ## Why network programmes exist, and where they work Direct repair programmes are not a scam and pretending otherwise is not useful. A carrier gets negotiated rates, predictable cycle times, standardised documentation and a shop that will not argue about a line item. The shop gets referral volume it does not have to advertise for. For a common automotive repair that arrangement genuinely does move a claim faster. It works because nearly any competent collision shop can repair nearly any car. Unibody construction, published repair procedures, abundant parts and a large pool of trained technicians make the work substitutable. Substitutability is the assumption the whole programme rests on. That assumption does not survive contact with a forty foot coach. A bonded fiberglass sidewall over a lauan or Azdel substrate, a slide room whose geometry decides whether a seal path stays closed, a chassis and a house that are effectively two vehicles, and components discontinued eight years into the vehicle's life. The pool of shops that can do that work is small, and a referral list optimised for cars will not reliably contain one. None of which means a network shop cannot do RV work. Some can. It means the question worth asking about any shop on any list is a specific one: do you have a frame bench, a full length booth, and how many bonded sidewalls did you open last year. ## What a carrier can legitimately require A carrier can decline to pay above a rate it has negotiated, ask for a second estimate, send a field adjuster or an independent appraiser to reinspect, specify aftermarket or salvage parts where the policy permits it, require photographs and documentation before approving a supplement, and set the terms on which it pays for storage or loss of use. All of those are ordinary claim handling and none of them conflict with the owner's right to choose a shop. Treating a legitimate request as steering wastes credibility that is worth keeping for a conversation that matters. Producing what is requested, quickly and completely, is what makes the next request easier. Where the two get confused is on rate. A carrier declining to pay a shop's posted rate is exercising a contractual position. A carrier implying that a shop's rate makes the repair unauthorised is describing something else. Our rates are published: body and paint at $210 per hour, mechanical and electrical at $260, diagnostics at $285 with a one hour minimum, and insurance billed work may be written at carrier negotiated rates that differ from those. Saying so publicly is what keeps the conversation about arithmetic. ## Direct billing is not affiliation Sixteen carriers are billed direct at this shop, which means the invoice goes to the carrier and the settlement does not route through the owner. It removes a handoff, a cheque, and usually a week. Progressive, GEICO, State Farm, AAA SoCal, Mercury, Allstate and Liberty Mutual are among them, and naming them describes an accounts payable arrangement rather than a relationship. OCRV Center is an independent repair facility. Naming a carrier describes a direct billing relationship and nothing more. It does not imply affiliation, endorsement, or that the carrier selects this shop on your behalf. In California the vehicle owner chooses the repair facility. The practical value of direct billing is dull and real: fewer steps between approval and payment, no cheque waiting for a lienholder signature, and one fewer place a file can sit. It is worth knowing about because the fear that keeps owners inside a network is usually administrative rather than technical. They expect to become their own claims department, and direct billing is the reason they do not. ## Choosing an RV shop, specifically Questions worth asking any shop, including this one, and the answers are checkable rather than a matter of opinion. What is your Bureau of Automotive Repair licence number. Ours is ARD00288521 and the EPA number is CAL000367879, and both appear in the footer of every page here because a California body shop publishing its own licence number is normal and expected. Do you measure structure against published manufacturer tolerance, and do the measurements go into the file. Do you match colour on the panel or from a paint code. Do you perform post repair ADAS calibration in house and does the scan report go in the file. Can you fabricate a discontinued cap or panel rather than waiting for one. How many Class A coaches can you get inside and lift. The last question is the one that quietly disqualifies most shops. A frame bench, a full length paint booth and lift capacity for a forty foot coach are capital items, and a shop either has them or works around not having them. Everything else on the list can be learned. That cannot be improvised. ## Questions ### Can my insurer require me to use a shop from their network? No. In California the vehicle owner chooses the repair facility, and a carrier may recommend but may not compel. A carrier can limit what it pays to its own estimate, which is a different fight and a winnable one when your shop documents method with photographs and measurements. If you are told a repair is only covered at a named shop, ask for that requirement in writing. The request usually ends there. ### What is a direct repair program, and what does joining one cost a customer? A direct repair program is an agreement where a shop accepts negotiated labour rates and cycle time targets in exchange for referral volume. It genuinely speeds up paperwork. What it also does is give a third party an interest in your repair method, because concession on hours is part of what buys the referral. Insurance billed work here may be written at carrier negotiated rates that differ from the posted retail figures, and the posted figures are what a customer pay job costs. --- Source: https://ocrv.guru/insurance-help/who-picks-the-shop/ OCRV Center, 23281 La Palma Ave, Yorba Linda, CA 92887. (949) 799-3387. Serving Laguna Niguel, California. All work performed in shop. No mobile or roadside service. Licences: California Bureau of Automotive Repair ARD00288521; EPA CAL000367879. Published ranges are ranges, not quotes. Every figure traces to https://ocrv.guru/prices/.