I-CAR announced that it has made additional refinements to its core education and recognition programming – after announcing in August significant enhancements planned for this segment.

The latest updates are being made based on feedback and recommendations from customers and other inter-industry subject matter experts, including collision repairers, OEMs and insurers, all of whom I-CAR states have embraced the refinements.

“I-CAR’s newly developed programs have been fine-tuned as a result of working closely with experts from the inter-industry to enhance our already successful core education, training and recognition programs, as well as methods of program delivery, to meet the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s collision repair professionals,” said John Van Alstyne, CEO and president of I-CAR. “These enhancements to our education and recognition programming give shops more time to absorb and implement the program changes while enabling technicians to meet their more stringent training requirements. They are intended to prepare technicians for the many ongoing changes within the industry and give them the knowledge that is essential to help them perform complete, safe and quality repairs for the ultimate benefit of the consumer.”

Here is a summary of the key enhancements to the Gold Class and Platinum training requirements, all of which are scheduled to launch early in the second quarter of 2019:

Gold Class Requirements

The new Gold Class training requirements include the following:

• Gold Class role requirements are scaled to shop size. This requires 50 percent of every shop’s Estimators, Refinishers and Non-Structural Technicians and 100 percent of its Structural Technicians to be trained to Gold Class requirements. One person can no longer hold all four roles; one person can hold up to two roles under the new requirements.
• Up to six role-relevant Vehicle & Technology Specific Training courses per technician are required annually for all non-role representatives.
• In-Shop Knowledge Assessments are optional in 2019.
• Increased frequency of Welding Training & Certification skill reverification, moving from five years to three years.
• Shop-level theory courses for Electrical/Diagnostics and Mechanical courses are required.
• A training subscription, scaled to the total number of technicians at the shop, includes all live, virtual and online courses for any shop employee.
• Available to all Gold Class shops, this subscription helps protect them from turnover costs while building bench strength by providing training for all technicians.
• Two Hands-On Skills Development courses, Squeeze-Type Resistance Spot Welding and MIG Brazing, will be required in 2020 for grandfathered shops, and in 2019 for new shops.

Transition Plan for Gold Class Shops

Existing Gold Class shops will continue to train to current Gold Class rules through their 2019 renewal. At a shop’s first renewal date following the new program launch, the shop will begin transitioning to the new Gold Class requirements for their 2020 renewal.

Shops that achieve or maintain Gold Class will be granted two renewal periods to achieve 50/100 percent scaling of role representative technicians to ProLevel 2. Example: If a Gold Class shop is trained to the current ProLevel 1 rules by Dec. 31, 2018, that shop will have through its renewal date in 2020 to
train to the new ProLevel 1 requirements, 2021 for ProLevel 2 and 2022 for ProLevel 3.

In addition, Platinum recognition will be achieved after a technician has trained through the new requirements to ProLevel 3. All ProLevel 1 courses will be conducted online.

For updated information, visit I-CARTrainToGain.com and follow I-CAR on social media for real-time updates.