Your Car and OEM Parts

Your insurance company promises to return your vehicle to its pre-accident condition after you’re involved in a crash. Unfortunately, the definition of “pre-accident condition” is hazy at best, and the use of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts at repair time could develop into a tug of war.

OEM parts are manufactured by the maker of your vehicle. Non-OEM parts, often called aftermarket or generic parts, are made by third-party vendors. Many insurance companies recommend non-OEM parts for the repair of damaged vehicles to keep insurance costs down. The industry sees non-OEM parts as quality replacements that are guaranteed and a perfectly reasonable alternative to OEM parts, and less expensive.

Insurance policy coverage requires repairs that use “certified” parts, parts of “like kind and quality,” or “functionally equivalent” parts. These are commonly called aftermarket crash parts. These aftermarket parts usually cost less than genuine OEM parts.

Many consumers aren’t aware that their car insurance coverage may allow use of aftermarket parts. One of the easiest ways for for you to ensure you get the highest quality parts is to choose an insurance policy that assures use of OEM parts. Read your policy carefully and ask your agent before you have a claim.

State Farm issues repair estimates using only OEM parts for exterior crash parts, although the company may prescribe aftermarket parts for non-crash components, such as batteries and headlights. State Farm sometimes also recommends recycled crash parts, mainly for older vehicles, when it believes a recycled part will restore the vehicle to its pre-loss condition.

You are certainly entitled to demand OEM parts after you crash your car, but your insurance company might not pay 100 percent of the repair bill if you do.

“We have an obligation to keep the cost of auto insurance down for all of our customers, whether or not they’ve been involved in an accident. If we paid for higher-cost OEM parts when non-OEM parts would allow us to return the vehicle to its pre-accident condition, we would overpay claims, which would result in higher costs to our customers,” says a Progressive spokesperson.

Progressive policyholders can request that OEM parts be used for repairs, but they will have to pay the cost difference between the OEM part and aftermarket part if the Progressive claim representative believes that an aftermarket part is appropriate.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which conducts crash tests, maintains that non-OEM parts do not degrade the safety of a vehicle involved in a crash. The IIHS refers to crash repair parts as “cosmetic parts.” According to IIHS, the source of “cosmetic parts” is “irrelevant to safety because the cosmetic parts themselves serve no safety function. They merely cover a car like skin,” with the exception of hoods, which must buckle properly during impact. And the IIHS says that “there is no evidence that hoods from aftermarket suppliers fail to perform as well as original-equipment hoods.”

Via[Car Insurance News]

for further reading : Are you entitled to brand-name repair parts? Know You’re OEM Rights!
via [Insure.com]