Insurer agreements and SLAs: what to check before you sign

Getting onto an insurer's panel takes two steps: the insurer approves your shop against its requirements, then you sign its agreement. Our guide to getting insurance work covers the first step. Insurers call the agreement a service level agreement (SLA), a repairer agreement or a commercial agreement. It covers what you'll be paid, how jobs must be run, and the terms of the relationship.

No insurer publishes its full SLA. What's public is insurers' application requirements, their letters to repairers and SAMBRA's notices to members, and together they give a fair picture. Momentum's SLA, sent to SAMBRA members in 2023, came in three parts: the main agreement, the operational requirements, and the rates and fees. MiWay's requirements list acceptance of its contract, with all its terms and conditions, among the minimum requirements for a repairer.

Read the whole agreement, the rates schedule included, before you sign. These are the clauses that decide whether insurance work pays:

• Rates and reviews. What you're paid per hour for each kind of work, and whether and when the rates are reviewed. MIBCO minimum wages go up every September, so a rate fixed for five years shrinks every year. Our labour rate guide shows what an hour really costs you.
• Changes during the term. Whether the insurer can change rates, processes or the agreement itself on notice, and how much notice you get.
• Payment. How many days after final costing or invoice you're paid, any settlement discount or rebate, and what happens to a disputed final costing. In 2019 SAMBRA said members were asked to discount their invoices by 2.5% to 10%, which it put at 20% to 30% of a repair's gross profit.
• Parts. Your markup and any cap, approved suppliers, who pays when a price changes after authorisation, and whether you may buy elsewhere. See our parts pricing guide.
• Warranty. How long you guarantee the work, and on what. A long or lifetime guarantee is a cost, so price it in.
• Towing and storage. What you may charge, from when, and whether the insurer must approve it first. Our guide to getting paid covers storage.
• Performance measures. Which targets are measured, how, and what happens if you miss them: fewer jobs, penalties or termination.
• Data and confidentiality. Who you may share claim information with, such as a parts supplier or a quoting platform.
• Audits. What the insurer may inspect, how often and with what notice.
• Term, renewal and termination. How long it runs, how it renews, the notice each side must give, and any bar on re-applying after it ends.
• Disputes. The escalation steps, and whether disputes go to arbitration or to court.

The Competition Commission's automotive aftermarket guidelines set out how it expects insurers to treat repairers, and the revised version has applied since 27 March 2025. Three clauses matter most for agreements:

• Insurers shall not appoint a repairer to a panel for more than five years, and should not keep renewing the same repairer if that unreasonably shuts out other capable repairers in the area (7.8.7).
• Insurers must adopt measures to allocate work fairly across their panels, preferring firms owned by historically disadvantaged people, for example by rotation (7.8.1).
• Insurers shall publish their accreditation standards and the list of their repairers, and formally disclose the reasons when they reject an application (7.8.3 and 7.8.6).

The guidelines aren't an Act, but the competition authorities must take them into account. They don't set rates or payment terms: those are for you and the insurer to agree.

Insurers have usually negotiated shop by shop. Momentum said in 2023 that all discussions would be with each member, not with the association, under its governance requirements. When Santam rolled out its new agreements in 2026, SAMBRA said Santam had assured members they wouldn't be penalised for engaging or negotiating.

Negotiating together

The Competition Act bars competing businesses from agreeing prices or trading conditions among themselves. The SMME Block Exemption Regulations, published on 3 June 2024, let small businesses negotiate collectively with large buyers or suppliers, if they apply to the Commission first and it approves the arrangement. They still don't allow fixing the prices charged to consumers, or collusive tendering.

In September 2026 SAMBRA said it had approval to negotiate operational and commercial SLA terms with individual insurers on behalf of qualifying small members, and that members still set their own labour rates. We found no Commission notice of the approval, so ask SAMBRA which insurers and terms it covers, and whether your shop qualifies.

What to bring to the table

• What an hour really costs you, worked out from your wages and overheads (see our labour rate guide).
• What your insurance jobs actually make, from a sample of finished jobs (see our job costing guide).
• Your cycle times, customer ratings and how many cars come back.
• Your capacity, equipment and qualifications, such as your estimator's VDQ.

Santam's repairer agreements are changing, and the new ones take effect on 1 November 2026. What's public, in order:

South African courts enforce contracts as they're written. In Beadica (2020) the Constitutional Court held that a court can't refuse to enforce a contract just because it finds a term unfair or harsh: the test is public policy, and the party challenging the contract has to prove it. So the time to object to a clause is before you sign. An agreement with no end date can usually be ended on reasonable notice, depending on its terms: in Rond Vista (2003) the Supreme Court of Appeal found six months reasonable.

The Consumer Protection Act won't usually help either. It protects consumers, and it doesn't apply where the consumer is a juristic person with assets or annual turnover of R2 million or more. If a dispute does come up:

• Follow the agreement's own escalation steps first, in writing, and keep every email, notice and final costing.
• If the agreement has an arbitration clause, that's usually where a dispute goes; otherwise, the courts.
• Conduct that harms competition, such as unfairly shutting repairers out, can be reported to the Competition Commission.
• The National Financial Ombud Scheme handles complaints by policyholders, not repairers' disputes with insurers.
• Talk to SAMBRA or the Collision Repairers Association, and have a lawyer read a long agreement before you sign it.

• Get the whole agreement, rates schedule included, and read it before you sign.
• Check your labour rates against what an hour really costs you, and how often they're reviewed.
• Know your payment days, discounts and rebates, and how disputed final costings are settled.
• Read the parts, paint, towing and storage terms.
• Price in the warranty the agreement asks for.
• Know the performance targets and what happens if you miss them.
• Check the term, renewal, notice and any bar on re-applying.
• Put your comments in writing, and sign only once the terms are agreed.