Safelite/D-T

[desertstars]

Anyone have any news concerning the Safelite lawsuit initiated by Diamond Triumph for alleged "steering"?

Last I heard, a tentative trial date was set for 9/8/2003 in Scranton, Pa.

All of us in the repair business including the manufacturers and distributors of repair equipment and/or supplies should be closely watching this trial for a number of very important reasons other just the impact on our wallets.

Installers should also be paying attention. If steering does NOT exist, then pigs really DO fly contrary to all I've observed in the past. Installers also stand to lose when a job is steered to "you know who" at their expense. (Not to mention what has been happening concerning insurance company discounts viz a viz Nags.)

It is insane and flies in the face of common sense and fair business practice to allow any entity involved in the w/s business to disseminate insurance claim glass jobs.

The evident collective ignorance compounded by a disregard for the bottom line (loss/claim ratio) practiced by insurance company executives results in higher policy costs for all of us and should appall even the jaded. Apparently, rather than put into place a brain-deduced system that lowers claim costs, they blissfully meander down the simple road and pass the costs on to the public.

Fine and dandy that they have involved middle-men to convert paper invoices to EDI. And, fine and dandy that LYNX is one of them. But, just how would they like it if all quotes for insurance from the public went into a central clearing house operated by one of their competitors and the leads were than passed on to agents by that competitor?

Huh? What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Safelite does NOT belong ANYWHERE between my contact with ANY insurance company for ANY reason.

Furthermore, any insurance company that is truly interested in keeping costs down should immediately insist that the networks qualify the damage. If it is deemed to be repairable, the job should be first assigned to a repair ONLY shop who can make the final determination on-site.

An immediate and precipitant drop in the amount of repair to replacement conversions will be as noticible as an elephant in a henhouse.

A quote from the September/October 2003 issue of A'GGR indicates the amount of discombobulating,snafued plate of snarled speghetti this lawsuit may degenerate into.

Safelite writes that while Diamond Triumph claims that it "has not received as many vehicle glass jobs and (sic) (it) thinks it should have received...the agreement is clear that there were no assurances Diamond Triumph would receive any referrals of glass work from Safelite."

That's NOT the point.

[Coitster]

Hey Desertstar,
Boy did you hit on a point that has been trying to be made by the auto glass industry against the networks for many, many, many years. I whole hartedly agree with you. I do think that all networks are responcable for stearing. An unknow fact is that almost 70% of the repair jobs safelite is sent out on are turned into complete replacements. I have a friend that works for safelite and he is a repairman only and he is required for his job to have at least a 50% rate of turing chips into cracks. It's not fair, however........... I have been in the repair and auto glass business for a long time. I have seen hundreds of lawsuits regarding networks and anti-steering suites filed in both state and federal courts. Everytime it happens I get a little excited that mabee the glass companies might win. I have yet to see it happen. It really sucks that networks and insurance companies have so much power. I was a beliver that mabee the IGA (Independant Glass Association) might have the ablility to stand up to them, that is untill they started bashing the repair industry. I personaly gave up and decided to join the networks. I didn't do it because I liked them, I did it because I didn't have a choice. Now whenever I do a job, they never, ever, ever try to stear a job on me. I simply call in when I am at the customers job site and then hand the phone to the customer. I have not lost a job in 7 years. Also before I joined the networks I just used to do the job and then send it in. What happened is they would cut my prices and then send me a check for the exact price that shops that where on the network where on. So that is my two cents. I am happy that I joined the network for the fact that I don't loose customers anymore, however I don't like the networks in general. I really don't see any changes happening that benifit the little guy. The insurance and their lobbiest have the power.
David
Coitster

[tooldini]

Are Diamond Triumph a good reliable company? I have contacted them a couple months ago and recently got contact with them about referral program on replacements. i come in contact with many replacements in Michigan,Ohio area. Someone wants to meet with me.Is this normal for a replacement referral program? I don't have a problem just wondered if it was normal and if they are as professional as I here they are.

thanks
Jeff

[desertstars]

Don't know about D-T's reliability et al, Jeff.

I assume you don't replace but need to cut a deal for a replacement referral.

Either find a good, qualified and dependable installer yourself and pay him a flat fee for picking up the w/s, glueing it in, and bill the insurance company through your company (making damned sure you carry liability insurance), or negotiate a flat fee for referrals to one of the big guys and let them do the billing.

If the latter, get paid the referral fee up front before giving them the referral with the stipulation that the monies are refunded in the event the job collapses and refuse any arrangement that states you don't get paid until they get paid.

Admittedly, in the interest of brevity, this advice is simplistic.

I"m not surprised they would like to meet with you. Just consider the difference between subbing the job yourself and making $150 plus bucks as opposed to a $50 referral fee paid sometime in the future.

They'll probably offer something in the vicinity of a measly two bits for a referral.

Conclusion.

If they aren't willing to pay you $50 for a valid referral, don't even bother to deal with them. But, meet with them for your own edification and let this forum know the result if you would.

[desertstars]

The IGA is about as potent as a .45 cartridge sans gunpowder when it comes to our repair industry. That is not their area of interest and, in fact, conflicts with their raison d'etre.

We are as different and separated from their business philosophy as a cobbler is from a boot manufacturer and it's time that we take that difference seriously.

A dedicated, well-trained and professional windshield repair person is an artist and not just someone who thinks that a Ming Dynasty vase is undeserving of further existence simply because it has a hairline crack.

(That is not to imply that glass manufacturers create masterpieces even though they might consider them as such. If they are indeed "masterpieces, they should be even more inclined to repair them rather than discard them to the nearest dumpster).

Tim Smale's IGA tests of repairs was laughable and about as scientific as a thesis written by a two year old's analysis of a frog dissection. His time would be better spent making damned sure that replacement windshields are installed by qualified and competent installers rather than nit-picking about "moisture infusion in the PVB interlayer, pummel adhesion units, and moisture measurements using a Perkin-Elmer Lamda 900 spectrophotometer equipped with a near infra-red light".

Give me a break!

I would rather be driving a car that had a one inch repair "fixed" by the most incompetent w/s repair technician east or west of the Mississippi that fails Mr. Smale's "pummel" test than to take the chance of my airbag propelling the windshield toward Mars because of an incompetent install.

My point is that we don't need to ally ourselves with the replacement industry. We are a separate entity and we need no longer think of ourselves as an extension or anyway related to our--face it--our competition.

The fact is that an un-named glass company cleverly managed to insinuate itself between over 60 insurance companies and the repair industry and now dictates who gets what and how that what is implemented.

That issue needs to be addressed and resolved.

And, we must clean our own house by requiring certification of technicians which, in itself, will exclude those who give our business a black eye because of shoddy repairs.

And, I certainly do not mean the kind of certification put forth a few years ago. That so-called certification involved a hefty fee and a written test without any hands-on repairs whatsoever.

I have a good friend who is an excellent installer. He got into repairs because he was forced to.

He never drills.

He never covers the area with a UV shield.

He doesn't need to because he works so fast that the sun's rays don't have sufficient time to reach the windshield.

His repairs resemble a sock-hole darned by two blind-folded, one-armed monkeys working back to back.

Coitster was absolutely on target concerning the conversion rate.

[Repair1]

OK I just can't sit back and not give my 2 cents worth on this one.

As far as the networks there here to stay! The Glass Industry screwed themselfs on this one years ago when they were screwing the insurance companys with over billing, wrong parts, etc.

Your so so right desertstars! I don't know were to start from what you have said I just know that as an INDEPENDENT we have a tough road ahead if we go at it ALONE. We can't count on any support from the IGA, NGA any of those large associations supported and controled by the S companies of the auto glass world. I don't know much about the NWRA but I wonder how many Replacement shops are supporting that asociation as well?

The down side is that they are going to do more to get total control of all Auto Glass Claims again the insurance companies letting the wolf guard the sheep it's all a big game played by the big corporations. Even LYNX has the prostar shops it has to send work to. Why else would you be a prostar shop? Everyone knows PPG is proably the most expensive to buy from as an Indenpendent. Maybe more referals I think thats what they call them we call it steering!
Has any Repair Only Shop ever been approached by PPG/LYNX to be a prostar shop? Think about it we don't move there product why would they want us to be a part of there team! I do have to admit i do get a couple here and there from LYNX if we had to have a network LYNX would be the one for now from what I can see. It would be nice if it was all on an even playing field. I'm dreaming again support from a network or a insurance company without spending millions of dollars slap me back to reallty.

I have seen it and heard it with my own eyes and ears. Been in a call center been in the meetings when they were braging about what percentage of calls they steered to there own shops. I'm sure it still goes on to this day why would they have a multi million dollar call center with hundreds of employees if they didn't profit and the best way to profit is keep as many jobs in there stores as possiable. Just think the Insurance companys think there doing them a favor by controlling there claims come on guys lets get real you know as well as I do it's all part of the deal the insurance companys just don't want to get caught so they let the wolfs handle it...

As far as Tim Smales test if thats what you want to call it. I wonder if he has looked at many of the late model cars that have the whole top edge of the windshield exposed to the eliments? That whole thing is a joke and again supported by the wonderful glass association which is supported by the big corporations mmm makes me wonder is the repair industry starting to hurt the unit count for these big corporations we can only hope so.

The best thing to do is get a good name in your market go after the consumers educate them about repairs how there done right. Keep them away from the Replament shops that do the bait and switch or as I heard it awhile ago Bait and replace... gotta laugh at that one it's soo true..


Good Day
And Happy Repairing
Brian

[desertstars]

You got it, Brian.

There is nothing wrong with networks per se assuming they have no vested interest as to which shop receives the job and the jobs are dispersed on a rotational basis.

Using that yardstick, you and I both know which of the two major networks needs to be blown out of the water.

What confuses me is why..exactly WHY the insurance companies are seemingly ignorant about the high ratio of unnecessary repair to replacement conversions? These so-called actuarial experts MUST be well-aware that something smells fishy.

I wonder whether or not they already know what a colossal, bone-head mistake they've made but are too pig-headed to admit it and too bureaucratically entrenched to address the problem.

One simple method that would work without throwing the baby out with the bath water would be to send repair-only shops out to anything other than an obvious replacement.

Perhaps a letter signed by a significant number of independent glass shops to the top five or six insurance company glass program managers could dispel our wonderment assuming we receive honest answers to our questions.

Networks ARE probably here to stay. But, maybe not ONE particular network that I can think of offhand.

All independents need to organize and that includes the shops who repair AND replace because they are also getting stiffed.

Anyone have any ideas in that regard?

[Coitster]

Hey Guys,
You guys are on the money but here is the problem. The reason that networks are so attractive to the insurance companies is this. #1 the networks offer a seamless process where they don't have to pay claims ajusters or computer processors to process a claim anymore. The network does that for them (hint so they can keep a large percentage of the business for themselves). Saves the insurance companies millions of dollars in payroll everyyear. #2 is that by using a network they now can save even more money because they can say that all they have to pay is a fair market value for a replacement or repair. That in and of itself is a huge savings to them. #3 they know that safelite is a manufacturer of glass and so is lynx (PPG) and they can discount prices far in excess of what a small independant shop can do simply because of volume and buying power. The insurnace companies don't car what happens to the little guys.
They are not concerned about a lot of chips being converted into replacements like safelite and a lot of replacement companies do because they are saving more money anyway then if it where to go back to like what it used to be, which will never ever happen by the way. I agree with the fact that the NWRA is outdated and just a pawn of the NGA. A new orginazation needs to be formed but one that has the support of at least 60% of the repair industry. Otherwise there is no power to it. Remember that insurance companies only care about the bottom line. They know that by using a network program they will save on their bottom line like crazy. Also just one more point, none of this probably would of ever happened if it hadn't been for all the glass companies out there waiving insurance deductables.
That in and of itself let the insurance companies know that there used to be a lot of profit in glass. Yea you can say that in most states it is illegal to wave deductables exept for repair only however it has been so ingraned into the minds of customers do to all the marketing glass companies have do I am not quite sure what the options are for the glass industry. There are just to many companies doing it for the government to enforce it unless some major changes are made.
David
Coitster

[desertstars]

Excellent points, Dave.

For those who have been following these threads, the Safelite/Diamond Triumph "steering" lawsuit has again been postponed. No new date has been determined yet.

American Family switched from Lynx to Safelite o/a September 22. The agreement states that Safelite will ask the customer if they have a shop preference. If the answer is "no", a Safelite shop within a 20 mile radius will be assigned.

So much for rotational lists.

For those of you who are interested, I will continue to keep you up to date.

I would suggest that one way to start toward the 60% of independent shops Dave mentioned is to encourage anyone you know in the business to join this forum. Even aside from this particular topic, Delta provides an excellent platform for repair tips that can help all of us improve on our techniques.