Issue No. 18 | August 4, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: 7.0% BLS data show motor vehicle maintenance and repair CPI up 7.0% year-over-year as of June 2026, its fastest pace of any recent reading. That’s the repair cost environment your CLIP loss ratio and reserve […]
Issue No. 17 | July 28, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: 25% Per Dark Sky Data’s cohort-based retention modeling, at an 8% annual cancellation rate, a portfolio of contracts turns over roughly a quarter of itself every three years just to hold flat, before any new […]
Issue No. 16 | July 21, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: $687.7 billion Federal Reserve G.19 data puts finance company nonrevolving consumer credit outstanding at $687.7 billion in May 2026, down from a 2024 peak of $721.1 billion. Against that backdrop, finance companies are applying greater […]
Issue No. 15 | July 14, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. Recommended reading before the desk: The $39 Billion Home Warranty Opportunity: What DTC Marketers Need to Know. The aging-asset and repair-cost dynamics in that piece are the same forces driving VSC economics on your lot. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: 12.8 years […]
Issue No. 14 | July 7, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: 7.52% Federal Reserve G.19 data puts the average new car 60-month loan rate at 7.52% as of February 2026, meaningfully above the floor that conditioned both consumers and F&I desks through 2020-2022. At current rates, […]
Issue No. 13 | June 30, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. Recommended reading before the desk: What the War in Iran Means for DTC and Dealership Marketers. The May CPI confirmation and June FOMC decision make the inflation timeline from that earlier analysis concrete for F&I. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: +44% BLS […]
Issue No. 12 | June 23, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: 3–10x In direct-to-consumer acquisition, house lists generate 5–9% response rates while prospect lists generate 0.5–2.5%, a 3–10x efficiency difference documented in the DMA Response Rate Report. That differential reflects what happens when marketing spend expands […]
Issue No. 11 | June 16, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: 7 Seven lifecycle states. The Dark Sky Data Retention Analysis Tool classifies every account in a dataset as: Retained accounts are further classified as: based on volume movement relative to the prior period and a […]
Issue No. 10 | June 9, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: $1.561 TRILLION The Federal Reserve G.19 release from May 7, 2026 puts motor vehicle loans outstanding at $1.561 trillion as of March 2026. The average new-car 72-month loan rate was 7.55% as of February 2026. […]
Issue No. 9 | June 2, 2026 Intelligence for F&I agents, administrators, and dealership finance professionals. THE VEHICLE MARKET NUMBER: 69 MONTHS The average used vehicle loan term extended from 64 months in 2018 to 69 months in 2025, according to Experian data cited in Colonnade Advisors’ March 2026 Direct-to-Consumer Vehicle Service Contract Industry Analysis. […]