Breaking Chains

EVANGELOS “LUCKY” PAPAGEORG Breaking Chains

Our industry is comprised of a mix of “body men” who run their body shops according to the old ways they were taught… and collision professionals who operate their collision repair businesses while trying to keep pace with the rapidly changing technology pervading all things automotive.

Sadly, the days of being able to run a body shop solely on a handshake and a price agreement have long since gone. Equally sad is the fact that some think they can continue to repair today’s vehicles using the techniques and equipment of those bygone days. Reinforcing this sad state of affairs is an insurance industry that is willing to sacrifice all manners of ethics in order to protect their bottom line at any cost. They blur the facts, preying upon the weak and those easily led astray under the guise of protecting the public from the spectrum of ever-increasing insurance premiums.

Many of those who have been led astray or forced into compliance are within our very own collision repair industry. These hardworking, compassionate individuals have been asked or forced to sacrifice tremendously for the better part of the last 34 years. They are forced to do so by “well-meaning legislation,” which has been bastardized by the insurance industry in an attempt to keep the collision repair industry cowering at the thought of having no customers and being forced out of business.

When the current referral system was forced upon the collision repair industry here in Massachusetts (through what some would say were some shady, very late-night backroom deals made on Beacon Hill), a wedge was driven into our industry. A wedge we have been seeking to remove for the past 34-plus years. A wedge that many of the body men turned businessmen saw for what it was at the time: a harbinger of bad times ahead. They saw that the insurance industry, rather than concentrating on the business of selling insurance, was instead inserting itself into the collision repair business – and not in a good way.

Insurers are not concerned with protecting the public as they claim. All one needs to do is to watch a few episodes of the “soap opera” which we call the ADALB, to see who is directing the “actors.” Yes, Oscar-winning performances by the chairman of the ADALB, the “esteemed” legal advisor and one of the singleminded insurance representatives on the Board leave no room for interpretation as to plot and motive. Together, they work in unison to murder any attempts by shops or consumers to be protected in the collision repair process. As if the months of selfimposed delays were not enough, the last meeting of the ADALB was an absolute disgrace. See for yourself by watching the video recording (especially the last seven minutes) on the Members Only section of aaspma.org.

What has come from all the collision repair industry’s recent efforts? As I mentioned in my last message, we have sharpened and strengthened our political teeth! Another even more important outcome is that we have added to our numbers as an “ALLIANCE.” Not just in membership but also in the caliber and resolve of our members. More and more member shops are no longer being chain rattlers; instead, they have become chain breakers. That is to say, rather than try to survive while chained to a system of claims handling and insurance payments at a substandard and suppressed reimbursement rate, shops are breaking away.

No longer are they allowing themselves to be controlled by the “learned helplessness” of a circus elephant, who has been chained for so long with a short length of flimsy chain to an even flimsier stick in the ground. Shops are informing their customers that they can no longer subsidize the multi-billion-dollar insurance industry at the expense of their own shop’s liability and at the expense of the vehicle owner’s safety. More and more shops are educating their customers regarding the fact that “co-pay” is here to stay in the collision repair industry, just as it has been in the medical profession. The “ALLIANCE” continues to assist in educating shops and consumers alike as to why this is becoming a reality. The blame is being laid squarely at the feet of the insurers who continue to refuse to face the reality of changing technology, equipment and the training required to protect the motoring public and the increased costs to keep pace. All the insurers see is that, in order to protect their record-breaking profits, they may have to increase insurance premiums, which they surely intend to do in any case.

The “ALLIANCE” website, our new TV show Auto Sense (see page 28), our collective lobbying and educating legislators are all part of our multi-pronged attack on a decades-old abuse

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