Each potential elite truck & van body repair member must undergo a full audit and inspection before being granted membership. The full details of each member will be held on a VBRA platform specially developed with ITAS which is already used by manufacturers and insurers, enabling a virtual online audit of all qualifications, services & calibration of all equipment.
This leaves a physical visit to cover any other area of the standard to be inspected with ongoing inspections handled mostly online.
The standard consists of several grades of membership:
- Elite Truck & Van Body Repair (Structural with Cab & Chassis Repair)
- Elite Truck Body Repair (Structural with Cab & Chassis Repair)
- Elite Van Body Repair (Structural with Chassis Repair)
- Elite Truck & Van Body Repair (Non-Structural no Cab or Chassis Repairs)
Thomas Hudd, national technical manager at VBRA and NBRA, said: “For too long the commercial vehicles accident repair industry has been unregulated by any means of auditing the accident repairs of large commercial vehicles. The main issue we faced in the past is insurance companies putting commercial vehicles in need of repair into light body shops, where the rates are lower, but the equipment.”
“To fix the problem we decided to create a new truck body repair standard, VBRA Elite. It was launched in July at 3M Atherstone where it was received with open arms both by accident management companies and repairers alike.”