Newbie has a question...

[ballypowerhouse]

Hello everybody. This is my very first post and I would like to ask your expertise.

I have been searching and looking through this forum for every bit of information which I could use to my advantage which is great.

I spoke to my friends mother today who has been doing windshield repair for several years and she told me that you have to be in business for at least 1 year before you can do insurance work. Is this true?

I want to get started in this but I am sure a majority of your work is billed to insurance companies, but if you have to wait a year then how do you get started?

I talked to Delta on the phone and they stated that they had never heard of that and told me I should be able to immediately sign up and submit claims through: Harmon Solution Group; Lynx/Metryx; Safelite; Alliance Claims Solutions, and Gerber.

I would greatly appreciate if you guys could shed some light on this and let me know if there is a 1 year waiting period or not. I tried calling 3 of the companies listed above and speaking to somebody if you are not affiliated with them or presenting a claim seems to be impossible.

Also, what are the requirements for getting started?
Pretty much what I understand so far is:
$500,000 General Liability Insurance
Good location
Tent (way im going to start)
Signs
Repair Equipment

Am I missing anything?

I am in Texas near Galveston.

Thank you greatly for reading and any help!

[stihlcarven]

This is kinda secondary, but you need to know how to repair windshields.

[paulrsf]

Hey-
I started doing repairs last Fall and signed up almost immediately with Harmon Solution Group; Lynx/Metryx; Safelite; Alliance Claims Solutions, and Gerber. There was no problem signing up, (other than all the tedious paperwork and faxing applications, etc.) Most of them required liability insurance before proceeding. Since signing up, Harmon Solutions Group has continuously referred the most claims to me (on average 6 per week). I've been using A.C.T. to handle most of my claims. I signed up for their full service plan which is pricey; $12.50 per claim. The benefit of the full service plan is that they handle everything. You put the customer on the phone and A.C.T. conferences the customer with the insurance company. They send you an email confirmation and the money is deposited directly into your bank account. If you have time, you can avoid the $12.50 by contacting the insurance company yourself and obtaining a pre-authorized dispatch number for the repair. Then, when you contact A.C.T. to complete the billing, the cost drops to $5.75 instead of $12.50. There's even a lesser expensive plan that they offer but I forget the details. I only remember that it required more work than I wanted to do. The good thing is that you can choose your own comfort level. You can let them handle everything until you feel ready to take on more of the work yourself.
Several of the networks require 500,000 liability insurance. I looked around and settled on RLI. It was inexpensive and I had the proof of liability certificate faxed to me that same day. I know there are many other companies that provide liability. Perhaps others here have some recommendations. If you would like the name and contact info for the account rep that handled my policy, email me and I will send it to you.
Hope some of this helps. I'm pretty new to all of this myself. So far I have had great success -more than I had anticipated by now. Business is steadily increasing and I I am looking forward to finding 2-3 locations in addition to the mobile service I am currently offering.
Best of luck to you!
Paul

[ballypowerhouse]

Hey Paul, thanks for the real response. Also, you abbr. the claims company you use, whats their full name as I am not sure who you are referring to.

Thanks greatly for your response though!

[Tbone]

A.C.T give jeff a call

[ghost rider]

Ballypowerhouse,
I have never heard of a waiting period, but it has been 10 years since I signed up with a network. Maybe they have had so many requests they decided to limit sign-ups. I would not bother signing on with Alliance, they were bought by Belron and will be part of Safelite very soon.

Paulrsf,
If you are calling in to get a dispatch # why are you still using ACT? just fax the invoice with dispatch directly to the TPA and they will only charge you something like $3.50 to do a paper claim and send the check directly to you.

[GlassStarz]

She is right they require you to be in buisness for a year but as other have said if you sign up with ACT they get you right in and you can start doing insurance work today. Nice people

[screenman]

Over here the bigger market is those without glass cover, how is it in the USA. Now of course we all know free repairs are an easy sell, but look further into the bowl and you will see it is filled with better money jobs. They may just take a little more effort to sell too. Most of the guys coming into your business are chasing the same customers, step aside and let all those guys have them, there is a better market. We here it over here all the time, I called on lots of dealers and got no work they want bottom dollar prices, Autoglass have all the insurance work sewn up, guys there is enough for everybody, just stop looking under the same stone.

[paulrsf]

All good, but which other stones are you referring to? Aside from insurance referrals, dealers, body shops, etc., what other leads can you suggest for securing new customers at better than network prices? Where are the better paying jobs you are speaking about?

Paul

[screenman]

Fleets ,fleets,fleets, company vehicles, buses, trucks the list goes on and on. The harder it is to break into thee customers and start getting the work the longer you will keep them. We have customers that took upwards of 15 calls before we got the first job, they now spend in excess of £800 per months with us, this is per customer not for the whole lot. Before I sold off part of the business we had 2 customers that had spent over £1,000 per months for over 17 years, now that was a proper sales call. Your replacement companies will not be so keen to do repairs for fleets as each repair potentially costs them a replacement, also when you consider how many peoples wages have to come out of each job you will see why the large companies need big prices to do repairs. A very good selling point is to educate the customer to use repairers for repair and replaces for replacement, this way the customer is assured that the repair guy will not cut corners and try and earn the bigger dollar. Explain to the customer that the guy who says he does repair could possibly earn far more by replacing the glass, Mr Customer if I offered you $60 or $200 as a gift which one would you take? Not all replacement companies are the same and I am only speaking from personal experience.