The insurance industry needs to work together with the vehicle repair sector to make sure technicians have the skills needed to work on EVs.
That’s according to Mark Shepherd, assistant director, head of general insurance at the Association of British Insurers (ABI), who said that as well as electrification, repairers also faced challenges from vehicles becoming more sophisticated.
Speaking at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) Electrified summit, Shepherd was asked how the ABI was helping to ensure technicians were trained to the required standard to work on EVs.
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He said: “I think there’s a challenge, not just for our industry, but it’s a challenge for clearly the repair sector as well. We need to work together with them in order to have repair technicians that are fit for the vehicles of today and of tomorrow.
“That involves challenges around electrification. It involves wider challenges around vehicle sophistication as well.
“I think that’s a real concern. It’s a concern I think that starts at the fundamentals of things like our education system, or things like how do we attract people into the repair sectors and into that industry? How do we ensure that the right skills are put in place, rather than just being an afterthought at that repair stage and then working back from there.”
Independent role in EV repair
Shepherd said that the independent repair sector would need to be part of the solution.
He said: “Increasingly, what we’re seeing are challenges where actually the independent repair sector doesn’t have the skills, the desire sometimes, or the knowledge to be able to work on more sophisticated vehicles, and that reduces competition and can then increase repair costs, which then filters through clearly to insurers and to insurance premiums that people pay as well.”
Commenting following the summit, Jon Douglass, director at the Independent Garage Association (IGA), and Craig Scragg, operations director of electrified vehicle repair organisation HEVRA, said with regard to independent garages: “Those that have adopted EV repair and diagnostic work into their businesses have taken seriously the need to gain the skills and knowledge required to work safely and competently on high voltage vehicles.
“The IGA and HEVRA are united in supporting independent garages to upskill their team, provide technical support, vehicle specific data and the appropriate equipment to be effective in meeting the demand of the UK EV car parc which continues to grow, along with the knowledge required to address more complex systems on current vehicles.
“HEVRA provides specialist support for an ever-increasing number of garages across the UK and beyond, to facilitate and expand provision of services to owners of high voltage vehicles from within the independent garage sector to meet growing demand.”
Data published last month by the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) showed that only 26% of the UK technician workforce was qualified to work on EVs at the end of Q3 2025, with the organisation adding that these skills were mostly concentrated in the franchised dealer sector.
Batteries adding to EV repair cost
Speaking at SMMT Electrified, Shepherd said insurance claims data showed that EVs were proving 25% more costly to repair on average than ICE vehicles, and took 15% longer to fix, adding to costs such as courtesy vehicles.
He said: “The primary driver of that is down to the cost of replacement batteries ranging from £5,000 to over £20,000. That makes it more likely that insurers will need to declare things like total losses or write off some vehicles.
“This isn’t, in our view, necessarily an issue around the fact that these vehicles can’t be repaired. It’s more about a technical assessment and an economic assessment of whether it’s worth repairing them or not because of those battery-driven costs.
“But I would say, more positively, we’re starting to see an improving picture. I think that gap is reducing between ICE repair costs and electric vehicle repair costs. So that shows that, I think, electric vehicle repair costs don’t need to remain higher and that there is a positivity there. But more needs to be done.”