Patterns of Automobile Crash Damage

An analysis of 15,000 repair estimates written nationwide on 1973 model passenger cars has been completed by State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Co. Among the findings presented in this paper are the distribution of impact points around the car, distribution of repair cost, repair and replacement frequencies of certain components, and an analysis of repair cost spending by component assembly.

A procedure is described which will monitor the crash damage sustained by new cars through the systematic collection and analysis of insurance company damage repair estimates. In the future, performance comparisons of various model year vehicles will be possible.

The availability and limitations of other insurance industry data sources are also discussed.