Farmers Insurance this week published consumer guidance explaining how Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, the cameras, sensors and radar behind features like automatic emergency braking, lane departure warnings and blind spot monitoring, are driving up the cost of routine collision repairs.
Michaela Rush, Farmers' head of national auto physical damage, framed the shift in terms of a connection many policyholders haven't made yet.
"Features designed to help prevent collisions can also make repairs more complicated and costly. Understanding that connection can help consumers make informed decisions about their car insurance coverage," Rush said.
For agents and brokers, it's a trend that's been building sharply in the claims data behind it, and one with direct implications for how physical damage coverage gets sold and priced going forward.
ADAS calibration, the process of recalibrating cameras, sensors and radar after a repair to ensure safety systems still function correctly, appeared on 34.7% of repair estimates in 2025, up from just 12.1% in 2022, according to Enlyte's 2026 Envision Trends report, which draws on Mitchell estimating data.
The share of estimates including a calibration line grew 31.4% year over year in 2025 alone, and the average number of calibrations per repair rose nearly 10% from 2024, with an average cost of $688 per estimate when a calibration was present. CCC Intelligent Solutions' own 2026 Crash Course report found a similar trajectory using a slightly different measure, with calibrations appearing on 28.3% of repairable estimates in the fourth quarter of 2025, up from 21.8% a year earlier, contributing to an average repair cost of $4,818 and a record 23.1% total loss rate across all auto claims.
Research cited in Enlyte's report suggests the actual need for calibration is being under-captured even at these levels: while calibrations appear on roughly a third of repair order estimates, industry data indicates more than 60% of vehicles involved in qualifying repairs may actually require it, pointing to a meaningful compliance gap between what's being billed and what's technically needed.
Not all the data cuts one direction. An Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Highway Loss Data Institute analysis comparing otherwise identical 2017-2022 model year vehicles with and without ADAS features found collision claim severity ran about 10% higher for ADAS-equipped vehicles, but overall losses were lower, since the safety features reduce how often a claim occurs in the first place even as each individual claim costs more to resolve.
That's a genuinely useful distinction for renewal conversations: a policyholder upgrading to a vehicle with more ADAS features isn't necessarily buying a worse risk from a total-cost standpoint, even though any individual physical damage claim on that vehicle is now more likely to run higher than it would have a few years ago.
The gap between vehicles that need calibration and vehicles that actually receive it carries liability implications beyond the immediate repair bill. A vehicle repaired without proper calibration may have safety systems that don't function as designed, exposure that can surface well after a claim closes if a subsequent accident is linked to a system that was never properly restored.
Reimbursement uncertainty has been cited as one reason some repair shops hesitate to invest in calibration equipment even when they recognize the technical need, meaning the gap isn't purely a documentation issue but reflects real economic pressure on the repair side of the claims process.
That raises a direct question worth surfacing with clients at renewal: whether current physical damage limits and deductibles actually anticipate calibration costs running $350 to $500 or more per system, and whether declining comprehensive or collision coverage entirely, a trend Enlyte's report flagged as more common during the recent affordability crunch, leaves a client with a costlier gap than they realize given how routine calibration charges have become.
Farmers' Greg Ritter, head of auto product, put the core message plainly: "Having the right insurance coverage in place can help provide support when the unexpected happens."
That translates into a specific renewal conversation rather than a general awareness point: confirming physical damage limits reflect a vehicle's actual ADAS-equipped repair cost profile, discussing deductible tradeoffs with the calibration cost data in hand rather than in the abstract, and flagging to clients that a repair shop's calibration practices, not just its collision repair quality, are now a meaningful factor in whether a claim gets fully and safely resolved.
Agents who can walk a client through the frequency-versus-severity tradeoff the IIHS/HLDI data reveals are better positioned to justify coverage and deductible recommendations than those relying on the generic "newer cars cost more to fix" framing most consumer-facing guidance still uses.
