Miscellaneous

Steering You Wrong? IL Consumers Join CT with Insurer-Recommended Repair Complaints

By E L Eversman

“Chicago — Choosing the best body shop to repair
your car is never an easy decision. Now, some customers complain that
some insurance companies are steering them to body shops that might not
be best for their cars. Larry Yellen has this investigation.”

MyFox Chicago | Are Insurance Companies Steering Car Owners to Bad Body Shops?

In many instances the answer to that question is, “Yes”.

Take a look at the story that aired on Chicago’s Fox News Station on February 26, 2008. The insurance industry spokesperson states that a consumer always has the right to choose the body shop and that the insurance companies have essentially “vetted” the body shops for the quality of their work. What she doesn’t say is the insurance company will hound you to death as a consumer to take your vehicle to a “preferred” shop for repair, and will try to achieve that by having the claim representative say things like, “we can’t guarantee the repairs”; “it will take two weeks for an adjuster to even look at your car”; or “that shop charges too much and you will have to pay out-of-pocket for repairs.” What the industry representative doesn’t tell us is that we have the right to choose any body shop we want, AND have the insurer pay for the repairs, AND not be pressured by the insurer about which shop we chose.

What she also doesn’t say is that insurers don’t actually go out and look at the repair work each shop performs, nor ensure they have the proper equipment, training, education, and materials to safely and properly fix each vehicle. Instead, insurers simply rely on the statements in the “direct repair program” document the insurer forces collision shops to sign that says the shops “warrant” to the insurer they have the necessary equipment, personnel, experience, etc. to properly repair vehicles. Many DRP shop owners with whom I’ve discussed the various insurer networks have frankly told me they never read the document before they signed it. They just knew if they didn’t sign the document and join the insurer’s network, they should close the doors to their businesses now. In other words, they don’t even know or care what they agreed to — as long as they have work and can keep their businesses open. As a result, many of these shops owners would have agreed to have Big Foot or pink elephants doing the repairs if that’s what they had to say to get on the insurer’s program.

Technorati Tags: collision repair, car accident, insurance, repair network, consumers

Full post as published by AutoMuse on February 28, 2008 (boomark / email).