AASP/MA VENDOR AFFINITY PROGRAM SPONSORS

When it comes to automotive coatings, no brands match Sherwin-Williams for longevity and commitment to the industry.

Founded in 1866, the company has offered automotive coatings to the national collision repair industry since the dawn of the automobile age over 100 years ago. Known and trusted by the Massachusetts market, Sherwin-Williams’ regional operation has a four-person sales team that works closely with shops from the western and central parts of Massachusetts to the greater Boston area.

“My goal is to drive value-added service,” states James H. Gray, sales representative for western Massachusetts and central Connecticut. “Basically, in today’s ever-changing market, we truly have never been in a better position to support our current and new business customers.”

More than just offering great paint, Sherwin-Williams strives to be a business partner to the auto body community.

“We offer labor-optimization solutions by connecting metrics to provide demonstrable business improvements.”

Sherwin-Williams recognizes that many shops are looking to improve their key performance indicators (KPIs) but sometimes face a challenge in connecting their numbers with the solutions they need to improve. Profit comes from labor; therefore, working to improve productivity helps shops gain the most profit. To help shops achieve this, Sherwin-Williams is excited to launch its suite of digital applications, Collision Core, later this year and continue to enhance its online training offerings through A-Plus University.

Collision Core is a comprehensive suite of intelligent and fullymobile applications that will be available to collision centers and designed to verify and validate the repair process in real-time with a focus on error elimination and labor optimization.

Prior to the pandemic, Sherwin-Williams offered in-house training for body shops. Once COVID-19 hit, the company set out to produce more online training with A-Plus University. In addition, Sherwin-Williams offers pre-recorded information by way of webinars posted on its Ecoleanuniversity.com website. Although virtual training is becoming more and more commonplace, Sherwin-Williams has still been able to offer in-house training provided all safety protocols are met.

Recently, the company came on board as a Silver-level participant in AASP/MA’s Vendor Affinity Program.

“We want to support the auto body association and help the auto body industry from the shop owner’s perspective,” Gray comments.

The Sherwin-Williams sales team eagerly anticipates AASP/ MA’s June 22 virtual General Membership Meeting, which will feature Sherwin-Williams Business Development Manager Lee Rush, who will discuss estimating solutions for profit.

What really sets Sherwin-Williams apart from the rest is their direct-to-market operation.

“With our company, there’s no middleman. Most companies do the manufacturing and then have jobbers distribute to the end customers, but we are the manufacturer, the sales team and the delivery team. We give shops more control over their business.”

PROTECTING CONSUMERS AND THE COLLISION INDUSTRY

MASSACHUSETTS

VICE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

continued from pg. 6

Insurers will attempt to scare the consumer into believing that this bill will affect all auto policies in the state and send their rates soaring. The simple fact is that policy rates have been going up all along while the consumer reimbursement rate has stayed stagnant. Also, if the insurer decided to raise the policy rates fairly in congruence with the consumer reimbursement increase, it may only raise the rates by $40-$60 per vehicle policy. We feel that such a minimal increase in policy cost would be far outweighed by the fair reimbursement for proper and safe repairs that it would bring.

The bottom line is that AASP/MA is the only group that is acting on behalf of the consumer in relation to auto claims and fair reimbursement. This rate needs to go up in order for vehicle policyholders to obtain proper OEM repairs at the shops of their choosing. So, if you are a shop owner, manager, appraiser or technician who isn’t a member of AASP/MA – and you value the level of reimbursement your customer is able to maintain – then YOU NEED TO JOIN US! If you want to join the fight for what is right and fair, please go to aaspma.org. Be part of the solution and join the alliance! The application is on page 7.

PROTECTING CONSUMERS AND THE COLLISION INDUSTRY

MASSACHUSETTS

AASP/MA VICE PRESIDENT MATTHEW CIASCHINI

is the co-owner of Full Tilt Auto Body & Collision (Easthampton, Northampton and Hatfield; fulltiltautobody.com) and can be reached at fulltilt.matthew@gmail.com.

REAL NUMBERS, REAL PROGRESS:

An Update on MA Rate Data

Although Massachusetts currently struggles with the lowest average consumer reimbursement rate in the nation, shops in this state have more power to turn things around than they may realize – and it all starts with properly understanding and utilizing data generated in the real world.

Just over two years ago, AASP/MA began urging members to actively participate in the online Labor Rate Survey and other services available through National AutoBody Research (NABR). The association’s goal was to gain enough industry participation to generate statistically valid information on rates charged by repair facilities and paid for by insurers and consumers. It was AASP/MA’s belief that the insurance industry’s common battle cry, “You’re the only one who charges for that,” was nothing more than a diversionary tactic used to contain costs, suppress rates and under-indemnify policyholders. Now, thanks to thousands of documents submitted by NABR-subscribing shops in Massachusetts, this suspicion has not only been confirmed but the Commonwealth auto repair scene now has the ammunition to fight back and win.

This was the point driven home during AASP/MA’s most recent virtual General Membership Meeting, which featured an extensive update from NABR’s Richard and Sam Valenzuela on critical updates to its BillableGenie platform and how its data can be used to the end-users’ advantage.

NABR’s BillableGenie is a powerful program that features a searchable database of what repairers across the country report in regard to the procedures they are being paid for by insurers. The information is compiled through estimates and other documentation submitted by body shop end-users. As of May 5, BillableGenie contained data for 8,868 paid estimates nationwide, including 1,173 customer-pay repairs that reflect actual nonconcessionary market rates and therefore a true open marketbased Labor Rate. (It is important to mention that Repairer Driven News recently reported on a 2018 case in Florida, GEICO v. Superior Auto Glass (assignee of Matthew Dick et al) and Certified Windshield (George Hart), where it was determined that program shop rates should not be used by GEICO to determine its prevailing rate.

As Judge S. Scott Stephens wrote in the ruling, “The carrier cannot say ‘prevailing competitive price’ is the limit of its liability and then effectively limit its exposure to a lower price it alone could obtain through a non-open-market transaction.)”

Earlier this year, NABR performed substantial upgrades to the BillableGenie system to enable increased search functionality efficiency. These advancements include the addition of parenthetical information (noted in parentheses) showing the number of records the system has for specific insurers, states, cities, procedures, vehicle makes, Labor Rates and shop certifications.

Perhaps most significantly, BillableGenie boasts claim documents for 413 auto insurers nationwide. This shop-submitted material has revealed more than 9,043 different procedures (or other added items and concessions) have been paid a total of 102,253 times.

“That’s 102,253 times that insurers have paid for a procedure or an operation that they tell you they don’t pay for,” Richard observed during the meeting. “I look at that as 9,043 profit opportunities for the body shops. I would respectfully suggest that body shops are not charging for all 9,043 procedures.”

In just over two years, Massachusetts shops alone have submitted 2,324 documents to BillableGenie, making the state the national leader in utilizing the platform.

“Massachusetts has gone from last in the nation to number one,” Richard shared. “You have out-performed Texas, which has 1,854 [documents] and has been with us for almost eight years.”

Additionally, BillableGenie’s data reveal (among other things) that insurers pay higher rates for certain procedures in other parts of the country that have nowhere near Massachusetts’ cost of living, which is the highest on average of any state in the continental United States. These higher payments also extend to not-included terms and above-average charges from OEMcertified facilities.

“If they are paying for a procedure anywhere in the country, should they pay you in Massachusetts? The answer is yes,” Richard said.

Not surprisingly, AASP/MA Executive Director Evangelos “Lucky” Papageorg noted that several AASP/MA members have already experienced considerable success in their negotiations with insurers by using the information accessible through the program.

“I get calls all the time from subscribers to BillableGenie who tell me how they’ve used the information to better their negotiating ability. In one instance, a shop told me they were able to substantiate a better negotiated figure with an insurance company using the information they obtained through BillableGenie.”

NABR’s work on behalf of AASP/MA and the industry at-large is poised to greatly expand with the arrival of its latest service, LaborRateHero.com, a free and consumer-facing website that provides rate pricing transparency via a searchable national database of shops’ posted door rates submitted to the NABR Labor Rate Survey. Searchable through zip codes, the site includes the posted door rates for all shops in a given area that have submitted information through the system.

“LaborRateHero.com is all about surveyed data,” Sam explained. “It’s you – the body shops – self-reporting what your posted retail rate is. Now you can see that for anywhere in the whole country. That’s especially useful to have to push back with if you get told by insurance companies that the price in your area is x. You can go to LaborRateHero.com, look around your area and ask, ‘How are you guys arriving at that price when I look around at the prices of body shops in my area and it actually says something else?’”