Thursday, July 17th, CCRS, the new collision repairer association in Connecticut had what appears to be their first meeting. Considering there are only a handful of members, there couldn’t have been much to discuss. Click here to visit their website and move to the bottom of the page to see a list of members in a scrolling text box. Also be sure to read their mission statement, and even more exciting, their “vision statement.” Ohh, I’ll save you the trouble of looking for it. Here it is for you to absorb. Be sure to swallow whatever you have in your mouth before you read this, lest it exits through your nose.

CCRS Vision:

Our Vision of this industry is one:

Where every business within the industry is treated as a knowledgeable, trustworthy professional worthy of respect, with every employee, manager, and owner contributing to insure that their integrity in action and deed is upheld; 

Where every employee has the education and training to provide a quality, timely repair on every vehicle thereby receiving the respect of peers, employers, and customers;

Where every customer receives a quality, timely repair at a fair and reasonable price by the professionals who made the repairs as well as the professionals who administered the claim;

Where every insurer believes they have received a quality repair at a fair settlement for quality work in a reasonable time, and in a respectful manner due any professional relationship;

-where all services that are performed are paid for and all services paid for are performed;

And where ethics and morals, respect and appreciation are the norm not the exception.

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Last week all the Internet news sites for the collision repair industry posted a press release trumpeting the formation of a new auto body association in Connecticut. That’s great news. Especially considering that this new association will be representing the DRP whores of the state. That they need an association can only mean one thing: The Auto Body Association of Connecticut has been very successful in threatening the DRP business model. Most shop owners, even those with some DRP’s will agree that DRP’s are bad for the industry. Most shop owners who participate in one or two DRP’s do it only out of necessity–to survive. But this new association is for the professional DRP whores who thrive on stealing work from you by colluding with insurers to steer customers into their shops. Let’s take a look at who is behind this stupidity.

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Coincidentally, today I received the Insurance Industry trade magazine ABRN in the mail. On the front page is a story about an new House Bill, HR 5638, that attempts to clarify the current patent laws and exempt aftermarket parts manufacturers from prosecution for stealing other manufacturer’s hard work.

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For years I have have wondered why auto manufacturers have allowed their designs to be copied and sold, depriving them of deserved income. Come to find out, most have not been patenting their designs. Lately, though, some manufacturers are challenging the unclear rules against making auto parts off limits to the band of pirates who simply copy other’s hard work. More and more they are applying for design patents on their body parts. And, boy, does this approach have the lazy pirates squealing.

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There’s a great article in Hammer and Dolly this month by Erica Eversman about Progressive’s newest tactic of charging body shops for rental costs that exceed what Progressive thinks is reasonable. Actually this is nothing new. Progressive has tried this in the past. And Traveler’s tried it several years ago with me. What does appear to be new is the use of attorneys and collection companies to intimidate body shop owners. Erica offers some great advice to protect yourself from this latest scheme to take your money. While I agree with her advice about documenting the calls and finding out exactly who it is trying to collect this money, I have some better advice. My advice has more “teeth,” and, frankly, will be more enjoyable. When someone calls trying to collect rental money it’s very simple. Tell the person on the other end of the phone to “Go F*** yourself.” and hang up.

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Without steering there could be no concession based DRP’s. Without concession based DRP’s there would be no need for steering. While insurers defend their tactics as good marketing it is little more than a conspiracy to deprive you of well needed and deserved income. It’s one thing for an insurer to recommend a repair shop to an insured who hasn’t already chosen one, or to an insured who asks for advice, but once a vehicle is in your shop, any attempt by an insurer to get it moved to another shop should be criminal. Though it is not criminal yet, I’m about to give you a method for retaliating through the court system. And since insurers have no fear of being sued, a different target would be more suitable.

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I’ve taken a part time job working at an independent body shop close to my home writing estimates and supplements and harassing insurance companies. I’ve been at it for a few months now and up until recently I haven’t seen or heard from a Progressive appraiser. Finally, several weeks ago, I had a customer who was hit by one of Progressive’s insureds. Because I’m in a different area of the state now, I’m unfamiliar with the local appraisers. More importantly, they are unfamiliar with me. What fun!

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Still cocky from their paid-for victory in the aftermarket parts suit, State Farm feels it has the collision repair industry by the short hairs.  They’ve played the good cop for many years, but all that is now changing. We have only ourselves to blame. For years we’ve gratefully accepted higher labor rates and fairer treatment from State Farm when compared to most other insurers. For years we’ve failed to capitalize on State Farm’s perceived generosity by not holding other insurers to the same standards and fair play. State Farm finally wised up and realized that it was giving money away because most of you have been willing to lay on your backs for much less.

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We are under attack from a virus as deadly to your shop’s health as the aids virus is to your physical health. That is not a dramatic overstatement. It is a depressing fact. Our industry’s immune system is in such bad shape that I don’t see how it can fend off this disease. The irony of it all would be hilarious if it was happening to some other industry, but because we are affected by the collateral damage of Progressive’s viral mutation I can find little to laugh about.

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You have to give some of these people credit for their creativity, and their tenacity when trying to come up with ways to screw you out of a few dollars. The insurers must have some committee where members brainstorm, trying to find little ways to carve up your repair bill. Never underestimate their desire to cut costs and the depths they will dive into the sewer to attain those cuts. A few dollars here and a few dollars there…insurers don’t really have any boundaries when it comes to relieving you of your hard earned money. Traveler’s, a company that, at least in my area of the country, has avoided some of the sleazy tactics has come up with a new trick. Have you seen this one?

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I can’t freakin believe it. CCC has finally decided to remove their moronic prompt when replacing or repairing a bumper cover. For those of you who use another estimating system I’ll give a quick explanation. When writing an estimate in Pathways, choosing to repair or replace a bumper cover causes the software to ask some stupid questions. One of the questions, presented as a prompt with a Yes or No answer, asks if you will be painting the bumper cover off the car, or in a separate procedure. If you click the Yes button, no overlap is taken from the refinish time of the bumper cover or the next chosen panel. And if you have a clear coat cap set, the clear coat time of the bumper is not included in that cap. If you choose No, the bumper cover is treated like any other panel that needs no special attention.

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Unless you’ve been too busy running yourselves out of business you’ve heard about or read the letter to our industry from Fox Collision Centers. It was a shock to hear a man who owned and operated 18 body shops say “Uncle” and throw in the towel. In fact, it makes little sense. How could a man who was driven enough and smart enough to build an empire like he had suddenly walk away from it all? How could he just hit the light switch on his way out the door and not return? Could he not see the damage piling up? Did he have no other choices? I detect an unpleasant olfactory sensation.

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Know of any decent insurance companies looking for a good appraiser? No, not for me. I wouldn’t torture myself like that. Right now I can think of at least ten appraisers who are fed up with their current job and are looking for another insurance company to work for. In case you haven’t’ noticed, there is some major turmoil in the insurance appraiser industry. Staff appraisers and independents alike are jumping ship or complaining about their jobs. Complaints are nothing new. Many appraisers are ex-body men, the kings of complainers, but this is beyond normal. Kinda almost makes me feel sorry for them.

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I received a phone call the other day from an insurance appraiser friend of mine that confirmed a rumor I heard. That rumor started here on this site a couple of weeks ago when some insurance person left a comment stating that the National Insurance Crime Bureau had issued an alert to all its members warning them about the software sold on this site. I could not confirm it because NICB does not post these alerts on their website. Apparently only paying members have access to this information. I ignored the rumor because I had heard nothing else. Well it is no longer a rumor. It is fact.

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I have retired from the collision repair business. On Tuesday, June 5th, I quit my job as a body shop manager and walked away from the repair end of our industry. If things work out like I hope they do, I will never have to argue with another insurance appraiser. I will never have to answer another stupid question like, “Why do I have to pay my deductible?” I will never have another boss (aside from my wife, of course). I will never have that same 40 minute drive each way to my job, day in and day out. Pushed to my breaking point, I have taken what some consider an insane leap.

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Has every one read their May issue of Body Shop Business? Yeah, right! I bet half of them are buried under piles of paperwork, still in their plastic wrappers. Those of you more savvy business professionals who read it carefully every month have seen, and hopefully read, their 2007 Industry Profile. If you haven’t, stop reading this and click here to read it online. To some it may seem like a bunch of boring numbers and useless facts, but when analyzed it reveals some very interesting facts about our industry

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If you’ve ever had some doubt whether or not the database providers are more interested in the welfare of their insurance customers than that of their collision repairer customers, you need look no further than the last estimate you wrote using their software. While all three claim to do research and time studies, and there is a general consensus that the current method of determining paint and materials costs is seriously flawed, all three continue to employ the derelict and unreliable formula that multiplies paint hours by some arbitrary dollar amount. If that isn’t bad enough, one of the three providers, Mitchell, sells a Paint and Materials Calculator. And while this calculator is also flawed it is much more accurate than the hours times dollars formula. It begs the question, why isn’t Mitchell’s P&M calculator integrated into their estimating software?

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Last week I received a call from someone asking my permission to use something I wrote at his association’s next meeting. I, of course, agreed to let him use it, but it had been a while since I had read it myself so I took another look at it. More than a year ago I wrote an outline for a presentation I gave for an auto body association meeting in another state. I titled it, “Taking Back the Collision Repair Industry: A blueprint for reclaiming your business from the insurance companies.” It’s a pretty good outline of talking points and action plans. It’s kind of buried in my website so I checked to see how many people actually found it and downloaded it. Not too many, so I decided to post a link to it here.

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a meeting held by the Auto Body Association of Connecticut with association leaders from seven other northeastern states. The meeting was prompted when a couple of ABAC members attended the NORTHEAST Autobody/Automotive Tradeshow in Suffern NY this past April. They attended a meeting and were impressed enough with the dialog to invite some of the attendees to Connecticut to exchange information and ideas. Aside from Connecticut, the states represented were Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont. Also present was Sheila Loftus from Crash Network and Erica Eversman from Vehicle Information Services.

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Am I the only software developer who makes software for body shops? Yesterday’s mail brought to my attention just how bad things are getting for body shops wanting software that benefits them and not the insurance companies. Yesterday’s mail also highlighted how deeply the myth of “insurance partners” has been entrenched into our industry.

I received a multi-page letter from Alldata trying to sell me their CollisionConnect software. In the sales pitch was the following: “Strengthen Relationships with your Insurance Partner” I also received my monthly Pathways update. In it contained an advertisement for their Estimatic Report Service. Their sales pitch was “Get the same data insurers traditionally use. Make your next meeting with your insurance partner more productive and take action to improve your operation.” Yeah, that just what I need, an “insurance partner.”

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CARSTAR’s recent letter to the industry proudly published in ABRN shines a spotlight as bright as the Sun on the problems collision repairers face. It is exactly the sentiments expressed in this letter that plague our industry. If nothing else, this written plea for help exposes the roots of our problems. If nothing else, it exposes the thought process of those responsible for handing the hen house keys to the fox.

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I seldom respond to comments posted here under one of my columns. I have a good reason for that too. I’ve said my piece. I encourage comments and don’t want to discourage them by responding to them, especially the negative comments. Usually the only time I’ll respond to a comment is when I feel the comment is inaccurate or misleading, but not stupid enough to make it obvious the writer has no idea what he or she is talking about.

I feel the need to respond to a comment left yesterday by an adjuster who works at Midland Management, a claims handling company in the Texas-Oklahoma region. The adjuster–he calls himself Gary–responded to an article I wrote last September about arbitrary paint and materials caps. If you would like to read the article to refresh your memory, it is here. And following is Gary’s comment:

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Here in Connecticut we have been very active in pursuing legislation that would end much of the current insurance abuses suffered by collision repairers. At the moment there are six bills making their way through the process. One of those bills is a new anti-steering bill. It would tighten up a lot of the lose ends in the current anti-steering bill that allow insurance companies to circumvent the “spirit” of the law.

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This is hilarious. This is priceless. I was laughing so hard yesterday. I was laughing at the sheer stupidity of one insurance company, and the interesting predicament another insurance company found itself in.

In our sick twisted minds, at one time or another, we all have wished certain insurance companies could get a taste of their own bitter medicine; then, maybe, keel over an die. Relax, it’s just an expression. I don’t want anyone to die. Recently, one of those insurance companies did get a taste of it’s own medicine, and the adjuster was furious. He was furious and I was laughing like a mad man.

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You gotta love these independent claims handling companies. They all claim to save the insurer money by streamlining the claims process and negotiating with body shops. If I were an insurer being solicited by one of these companies, the first question I would ask is, “Just what will you be doing that is so remarkable and revolutionary to handle our claims that we, as a multi-billion dollar insurance company that’s been in business for more than 100 years, hasn’t already done? Who the hell are you?”

But then, who the hell am I to tell an insurance company how to operate either?

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It arrived by special delivery the other day, like it was of vital importance to the health and survival of my shop. After all of the talk I’ve heard and read over the past several months, I finally have my very own copy of State Farm’s new “Select Service Program” agreement. It looks like it is time for a divorce.

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My previous article highlighted some of the methods being used by Nationwide Insurance (in my little part of the world, anyway) to suppress the severity of initial estimates in the field. As you could tell by the tone of language, the claims manager was under intense pressure to straighten out his crew of appraisers. It should come as no surprise, but several appraisers were eventually fired or quit.

Today I am posting an email sent out to 22 subordinates by one Paul J. Connell, Materials Damage Claims Associate Director. This email followed a meeting they had that day. I have been told that many who attended that meeting had the urge to quit when they left the building. It’s also interesting to note that some of Progressive’s people have been migrating to Nationwide. Starting to make sense now?

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Unless you pay absolutely no attention whatsoever to your industry, you’ve heard about the scandal that happened at NACE this year when the Anti-Fraud committee from CIC wanted to release the results of a survey they did that showed widespread insurer fraud in the form of under written estimates. The result of this fraud is probably billions of dollars stolen from policy holders every year, but it is impossible to know for sure because so many people never get their vehicles repaired. Insurers think that just because a person decides not to repair the vehicle they should not be entitled to the entire loss.

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