CCC Crash Course examines the collision trends of 2025

CCC’s Q4 Crash Course explores trends of 2025 including the complex car parc, increased calibrations and supply chain destabilization. 

“If 2025 revealed anything, it’s that the auto claims and repair ecosystem wasn’t simply changing – it was being fundamentally reshaped,” the report says. 

Higher new vehicle prices and increased interest rates pushed consumers to hold cars longer in 2025, leading to a continued rise in the average vehicle age. 

S&P Global reported in May that the average age of passenger cars in the U.S. has reached 14.5 years and light trucks is now 11 years. 

“Yet age was only part of the story,” CCC’s report says. “The composition of the car parc was changing as well. SUVs and crossovers solidified their dominance, while the presence of hybrids and EVs grew, each introducing new repair, parts, and underwriting considerations.”

Embedded electronics, more ADAS and increasingly integrated components led to more diagnostics, calibrations and costlier repair procedures, the report says. 

“These shifts influenced every aspect of claims and repair operations: older vehicles were more likely to be declared total losses by insurers, more complex vehicles required longer labor hours and specialized workflows, and evolving ownership patterns reshaped exposure,” the report says. “The notion of an ‘average vehicle’ grew less meaningful as the car parc diversified.

Calibrations became a more routine but increasing variable, according to the report. 

“Differences in vehicle make, model, trim, sensor placement, and damage type created a widening range of calibration requirements,” the report says. “And it wasn’t just the volume of calibrations that challenged repairers; it was the variability, which required more precise documentation, careful sequencing, and added repair steps that affected both quality and cycle time.” 

The aging car parc does not offset the ADAS trends, as features became more commonplace in the late 2010s. 

“The result was a repair environment in which diagnostics and calibrations were no longer niche tasks but central operational pillars influencing total cost, throughput, and customer communication,” the report says. 

CCC discussed calibrations in detail in its Current State of Calibrations report last month. The report found that in 2017 only 0.9% of repairable appraisals included a calibration, while 23% of the appraisals included a calibration in 2025. The report also found that nearly 70% of all repairable appraisals now include a scan. 

Tariffs on imported auto components also put sustained pressure on parts pricing throughout the year, the report says. This created unpredictable spikes that directly impacted severity. 

“Even when claim frequency remained steady, the cost of fulfilling the average claim continued to rise,” the report says. “Meanwhile, global logistics remained unsettled, with uneven factory output, fluctuating shipping lanes, and persistent bottlenecks in key electronic components that delayed otherwise straightforward repairs.”

Repairers were left explaining to customers why a bumper repair was waiting on a back-ordered sensor, the report says. Shops also had to absorb operational delays and manage increasingly complex repair planning driven by calibration needs. 

“Insurers felt those downstream effects as cycle times stretched, rental exposure increased, and older vehicles – already close to total-loss thresholds – became even harder to justify repairing,” the release said. “What emerged was not a temporary disruption, but a structural shift in how parts move, how much they cost, and how repair plans must be built.”

CCC’s Q3 Crash Report found that the average part price, which were flat between 2022 and 2023, rose more than 4% year-over-year in March and April of this year, coinciding with tariff-driven supply chain disruptions.

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