New Hampshire Dealers: The Hidden Profit in Proactive Warranty Rate Management

One Opportunity Per Year — Don’t Waste It

Under New Hampshire law:

“A dealer shall not declare an average percentage markup or average labor rate more than once in a calendar year.”

This means you have one opportunity per year to submit for a warranty parts mark-up increase and one opportunity to submit for a warranty labor rate increase. With New Hampshire being a calendar year state, you have an opportunity to submit every year on January 1^st, and your strategy around warranty reimbursement should center around submitting on that date.

If you delay, or your submission is not completely timely, you’re not only waiting longer for higher reimbursement, but you’re forfeiting daily profits that could be flowing back into your store. In a high-volume dealership, that lost margin can easily add up to tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, the average dealer loses $8,000 for every month of delay.

Why Proactive Dealers Win

Warranty reimbursement should be a well-defined annual strategy for all dealers. Of course, this means you should be preparing throughout the current year to ensure success next year. The goal should be to submit labor rate increases every 12 months, ideally on January 1st, and to review parts markups every year, even if you don’t end up submitting for parts.

Being proactive means you’re not scrambling to gather data or wasting time trying to put a submission together that yields little-to-no result. Instead, you’re in control — analyzing where your rates stand, how your customer pay pricing structure is changing, and how those changes could affect your next warranty rate submission.

Software Makes the Difference

This is where technology, visibility and coaching become essential. Advanced software allows dealers to:

• Identify exactly what rates they’re entitled to based on a deep analysis of 6 months of customer-pay repair data.
• Model how changes to customer pay pricing (such as grid or matrix changes, door rate increases or menu pricing updates) will impact their future warranty rate submissions.
• Track submission timing so you never miss the 12-month window for labor or the optimal time to review parts markups.

Without specialized software, the result is often missed opportunities for parts and/or labor rate increases, strategic decisions made on inaccurate or surface-level data, and delayed submissions that erode profit. Inferior software may slightly improve on a purely manual process, but if a vendor claims to optimize warranty reimbursement, ask them to show you how.

Everyday Counts

Every day your reimbursement rates lag behind what you’re entitled to, your store is giving up hidden profit. A timely submission means those additional dollars start falling to your bottom line sooner, and that impact compounds month after month. If you cannot submit every 12 months, you are not alone. In that case, retaining someone with the expertise to guide you through the process simply makes good business sense. In addition, getting the submission done timely is of paramount importance, this process should not take months, it should be done in a couple of weeks.

Think of it this way: if your new rates would generate an extra $300 per day in warranty revenue, waiting even 30 days to submit costs you $9,000. Multiply that across your total number of stores, and the number can become staggering.

The Bottom Line

New Hampshire dealers who take a proactive, data-driven approach to warranty reimbursement gain a distinct financial advantage. By leveraging software to stay ahead of rate opportunities, evaluating customer pay pricing changes, and submitting on schedule, dealers can eliminate hidden lost profit and protect their margins all year long.

Your one submission per year shouldn’t be an afterthought, it should be part of your strategic financial plan.

Article Author:
 Jordan Jankowski
Chief Operating Officer, Armatus Dealer Uplift

Jordan Jankowski is the Chief Operating Officer at Armatus Dealer Uplift. He has played a key role in consulting on 21 warranty reimbursement laws across the country and is widely considered a subject matter expert in this highly technical arena. Jordan manages a team of over 70 people, who produce thousands of retail warranty reimbursement submissions each year.

To learn more about Armatus visit www.DealerUplift.com or call (888) 477-2228.