Insurers Hinder ADALB Vote on Regulatory Amendments

Hopes ran high as the Auto Damage Appraiser Licensing Board (ADALB) met virtually for its first meeting in 2022. After spending the bulk of last year’s meetings debating amendments to 212 CMR 2.00 which were approved in 2016 by the previously seated ADALB, the Board completed its review during its November meeting, leaving only one remaining vote to accept the regulations.

Yet, despite last year’s repeated scrutiny of each word in the ninepage document, that final vote did not take place during this meeting due to concerns raised by the insurance representatives sitting on the ADALB. The conversation progressed smoothly until the Board reached 2.04(1)(e) when Board member Peter Smith (MAPFRE) raised a new concern related to “some minor grammatical changes.”

“This has been going on for five and a half years, and I just don’t get it,” Board member Bill Johnson (Pleasant Street Auto; South Hadley/Belchertown) objected. “This seems like a delay tactic by the insurance representatives, and I’m not trying to throw stones, but it’s just very frustrating.”

“We’ve rehashed this thing a million times,” Board member Rick Starbard (Rick’s Auto Collision; Revere) agreed. “We were all cool with it at the last meeting.”

Smith made a motion to table discussion on those revisions until the next meeting, and after a long pause, Board member Samantha Tracy (Arbella Insurance) seconded the motion. Both representatives from the insurance industry voted in favor of the apparent attempt at a filibuster, and when Johnson and Starbard voted against the motion, the decision fell to ADALB Chairman Michael Donovan who sided with Smith and Tracy.

When Smith expressed concerns with the language added to 2.04(2), Starbard pointed out that he and Johnson had no issue with the original verbiage, but at his suggestion that they move forward with the previous content as written, Smith thwarted his efforts to hasten the review by offering to “clean this up and bring it as a suggestion to the next meeting.”

The ADALB is scheduled to meet next on March 15, though Starbard and Johnson pressed for an earlier meeting in order to complete the long-overdue review. After reviewing the final two concerns raised by Smith in relation to 212 CMR 2.00, the ADALB plans to begin reviewing the first 20 complaints which have been in queue since before the COVID pandemic in order to move them forward and start addressing the additional filed complaints that have been piling up over the last two years.

AASP/MA members are strongly encouraged to listen to the recording of the January 26 meeting in the Members Only section of aaspma.org for a glimpse into the inner workings of the ADALB. The original proposed revisions can be found on the November meeting agenda, available at bit.ly/ADALB0122. More detailed coverage of this meeting appears in the February issue of the Damage Report members only newsletter.

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