PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Getting Back to Our Real Jobs

by JERRY MCNEE

There was a time when I thought my job was to repair vehicles, but those days are over.

No, I’m not retiring from my business; I’m saying that surviving the industry takes a lot more than just fixing the cars that show up at our door. These days, we need to be experts in everything – from understanding what’s in our customers’ insurance policies to knowing the liability we could face if we let someone else dictate how we should do our jobs. Let’s talk about insurance policies first. Realistically, most customers aren’t aware of the quality of coverage they purchase, because they base their decisions on price. This can put us in a bad position where we’re chasing our tails defending a customer who has a policy that doesn’t allow them to be reimbursed for what’s required to properly restore their vehicle. This is why accessing and documenting necessary operations and OEM repair procedures is so critical. Without that, we have nothing to stand on and no hope in illustrating why our procedures and charges are reasonable.

Even consumers with the “best” policies out there get the runaround. How many times have you had to fight with an insurer over a necessary procedure when all that company wanted to say was, “No, we don’t pay for that”? How many times have you been pushed to install a used or reconditioned part that clearly shouldn’t be used on that vehicle? I don’t think it’ll be too long before the collision repair industry becomes very similar to what goes on at hospitals: A customer will come in with their vehicle and hand us the deductible and their insurance check, and we’ll hand them a bill for anything their insurer doesn’t cover. At the end of the day, it’s our customer’s policy – not ours.

As far as liability goes, how many times have you handed an insurer a waiver to sign indicating that it would assume the liability for the procedures and parts they insisted that you use? Did they actually sign it? I already know the answer to both questions. Insurers are not repair experts; it’s your job to do the job correctly. There isn’t a court in this country that would accept your position that you repaired a vehicle based on what the insurer wanted.

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