Connecticut House Bill 5283

[Brent Deines]

Interesting announcement in GlassBytes today. http://www.glassbytes.com/newsBill20110118.htm

Many of you have stated that you hope a bill will be passed to “prohibit an adjuster for an insurance company, automobile physical damage appraiser or individual or entity that processes claims for automotive glass replacement work from having a financial interest in a business that installs automotive glass.” If Connecticut passes this one it will be interesting to see if other states will follow suit.

[RHINOMAN]

Brent,

The introduction of this Bill is obviously reflective of SGC's most recent activity from state to state & ins co. to ins co. (Geico & now USAA & more to come) slowly but surely til they've made a galant ATTEMPT to monopolize the industry but the Bill only says "Replacement" (unless i read it wrong). Would a Bill like this also include repair, or do you think a seperate Bill would have to be passed, or would we have to wait for enough fed up repair techs to get their customers to videotape Safelite repair techs/adjusters (who are supposedly just inspecting the chip after which offering to go ahead and repair it themselves instead of using the company who actually used their own resources to get the business therein rendering under Ceasar our advertising returns are merely to promote Safelite, leaving us with only Lynx, Harmon & Travelers - bread crumbs)-(WOW, sorry,still a little sour on them). In any case what are your thoughts on this?

[Brent Deines]

You're right, the language in this bill does refer to "installations" and does not specifically address repairs. I would like to think the NWRA would be all over this trying to get similar repair language adopted but I haven't heard anything from them about that yet.

I don't know that this bill will help the windshield "repair" industry or not, but just wanted to bring it to everyone's attention as many have suggested that we need this type of legislation to give independents a more level playing field. Personally I think it's a huge conflict of interest to have either a repair or replacement company inspect a windshield if they are the potential repair or replacement facility. That is like having a building contractor do his own home inspections. It's hard for me to grasp why the insurance companies can't see that.

[puka pau]

Brent;

I have no idea what your experience is with the NWRA but from what I know about them I'd be reluctant to trust them to put the right shoe on the right foot when they're getting dressed in the morning let alone an effort to amend or conribute to legislation.

On another note, the insurance companies care not about conflicts of interest for the same reason they care not that a glass installer will sell a car dealer a W/S for $150 (and wait thirty days for the money) and charge an insurance company $450 or more for a retail install: the auto insurance companies (just like the health care insurers) have pricing power. They really don't care a whit about conflicts of interest or competition. All their actuaries use the same formulas so they raise rates because they can because policy holders are powerless. It's easier and less expensive for the insurers to just pay the bill and pass the cost on to the consumer in the form of increased premiums than to exercise even a modicum of due diligence. JMNSHO.

Cheers;

Puka Pau

[ghost rider]

The idea of conflict of interest went out the window several years ago when the insurance companies hired glass companies to act as third party administrators for their own product. This is just the next locigal step for the glass companies to gain more control over who will buy their product at insurance company pricing. Must be a pretty tall table to pass that much $tuff under.