Ageas combines salvage and green parts operations

General insurer Ageas has combined its salvage operation and green parts supply after a successful year-long pilot saw the firm use 4,926 green car parts for repairs on customer and third-party vehicles between January 2019 and January 2020.

Designed to increase capacity for green repairs and reduce the amount of plastic, metal and glass used to create new parts, Ageas has appointed Hills Salvage as its salvage provider and The Green Parts Specialists, Hills’ green car parts arm, as its green parts provider.

This means that car parts from Ageas’s salvaged vehicles will be fed back into its repair network as green car parts – the insurer hopes this could triple the number of green car parts used by its approved repairers by 2023.

Prompt service

Ageas further believes that using green car parts can help get customers’ cars back on the road quicker, as it will be easier for the company to source a green part than to order a new manufacturer part – especially if this needs to be imported from abroad.

Robin Challand, claims director at Ageas, said: “As well as reducing the amount of glass, metal, plastic and energy required to make a new part, it means quality-controlled parts get a second life, extending their use and reducing unnecessary waste.

“Reusing these parts also reduces the likelihood of damaged cars being scrapped due to the cost of a new part outweighing the value of the vehicle.

“On occasions where new car parts have to be shipped in from overseas, it can also reduce the environmental impact through less need for international transportation of parts.”

Managing stock

As part of the partnership, vehicles and parts will be electronically tracked – this will enable Hills to create a database of available parts, where these parts are located and where they came from originally.

Therefore, when an Ageas approved repairer needs a green car part, they can log in to an app or web portal and find out within an hour whether the part they need is in stock.

Once the new arrangement is fully implemented, The Green Parts Specialists expect to have access to around 500,000 green car parts on any given day.

Ian Hill, managing director at Hills Salvage, added: “Our partnership with Ageas represents a big step forward for Hills and The Green Parts Specialists.

“We are passionate about sustainability and look forward to helping keep Ageas’s customers on the road.”

The move towards green parts aligns with an industry call from Biba - in its 2020 manifesto, it asked the sector to do more for sustainability.