In my market, I'm seeing deductibles going up, up, up-it's not uncommon to see 1000.00 on comp around here-but 500.00 seems to be the standard lately-with a trend like that, I see the insurance companies virtually getting out of paying for glass claims-in New Jersey it's a manditory 750.00 ded. As that starts to spread around the country (and you know it will) the need for TPA's should rapidly diminish-right? Then it becomes a cash market with the percentage of insurance work dwindling to maybe 10%-With the TPA's becoming increasingly less influential, could we possibly start getting the prices we should get??

I Hope So. High Ded. will take the Ins. Co. out of our market. At that point the TPAs become the appendix of the glass industry.

I would like to see capitalism work. My only fear are the glass prostitutes. The ones who will give the glass away for $50 over cost and get just about nothing for labor. I know price fixing is illeagel but I would't stop somebody from taking one of these glass prostitutes out to the wood shed. There, I think I said that in a perfectly legal manor.

My thought is somewhat counter to the view currently being expressed: What would cause cash pricing to improve? AND with Insurance prices higher than cash currently; why does the thought exist that eliminating the Insurance work will make things better? The only scenario where that makes sense is if the shop is shut out of the current insurance market and thinks an all cash market will reopen the pool of cutomers to their shop via an expanded cash market. Why not go out and market to the Insurance agents in your town? Because cash pricing will fall even farther when the higher margins of Insurance work dissapear. (remember how too many glassers go to low price first) What playbook are you folks reading from?

If the Ins. market is gone cash prices will have to rise to make up the lost income. Shops will be on equal ground. SGC will not be able to direct 60% of glass replacements to SGC shops. TPAs will be powerless. Your area will revert back to local AGR shops.

If the Ins. Co. is out of the AGR market, cash prices will have to rise to make up for the lost income. All shops will all be on equal ground. SGC net will not be able to steer 60% of glass replacements to SGC shops. TPAs will be powerless. Your area will revert to the local shops. The AGR low balers can’t be any worse then they already are.

Funny I posted 1st reply. It didn't show up so posted again. What's up with that. (or am I just out there where the buses don't run?)

HEY AGRsales

Did everyone else sign a different agreement than we did, we are forbidden to market to Insurance Agents. No phone calls, no sales calls, no "incentive's" which even includes dumb S__t such as mouse pads, pens, and note pads, forget about taking anyone to lunch....hell we're afraid to send xmas cards anymore.

I do market "select" agents-I know the ones that do and don't refer-and believe me, the ones that do are becoming fewer and fewer every day-Allstate can't refer, Nationwide can't-Travellers customers are told NOT to call their agents-very few Erie agents refer anymore so that leaves State Farm and they're dropping off on a regular basis-I was approached by Glass America to sell for them awhile back-they said they were looking for 65% insurance work!!! I told them they would be lucky to get 20%-they said they weren't looking for commercial work-now, they're struggling to to even pick up a gas station here and there-Face it, the times they are a changin'

OK HERE'S A CLUE YOU CANT SEND ITEMS TO THE AGENT AND I DON'T. YOU SEND THEM TO THE GIRL AT THE FRONT DESK WHO MAKES THE REFFERAL YOU GIVE HER A GREAT DEAL ON HER WINDSHIELD ON HER CAR ALL SHE IS THE FRONT PERSON AND HALF THE TIME THE AGENT DOESN'T KNOW WHO IS DOING THE WORK I HAVE AGENTS TELL ME THAT THEY DON'T WANT TO BOTHERED BY THEIR CUSTOMERS .

Agents not wanting to be bothered by their clients. No wonder they are following the path of the dinosaurs. Yes, I have run into that too.

Yes even in our struggling industry, I'm proud to say I work in a field that generally offers excellent customer service. The shop owners I know at least, ourselves for sure, and it sounds like most of you posters really care about the customer. We also have SF insureds call and tell us their agent told them to call us and we'd handle everything, well if you don't have "CLAIM LAUNCH" the glass shop can't call in the claim to LYNX we just give the number for LYNX to the insured and they have to do what their agent should be doing for them. Deal with the TPA's, no premium paying insured should have to do that, it's bad enough we gotta deal with em, not trashing LYNX actually love them compared to the other guys (S@$). And when insureds call in from our shop the process seems relatively painless, but should still be done by the agent, exactly what do they do to earn the big $$$$

What do insurance agents do anyway, besides mark-up insurance prices and act annoyed with their customers? I foe one, will never purchase insurance from a company that still uses this anachronistic form of "customer service" Around here State Farm and Allstate insured have a problem of calling their agent to have them file a glass claim for them.(Isn't that what an agent is for?) It MIGHT happen 2-3 days later. Why bother with these jerks when an Allied claim takes no more than 10 min.?

Be careful what you wish for.....you might get it.

If the insurance companies are out of the picture, the national glass companies are not likely to roll over and play dead.

The prices could see a serious decline for a while.

Glass software - $900/year
EDI - $200/year
Dedicated phone line for fax/EDI - $540/year
Labor time spent on the phone with TPAs - over $1000/year.

Seeing the TPAs go extinct and keeping this money in my pocket - PRICELESS!!!!

When you consider that it takes over $5000 in sales to justify the expenses put on us as outlined above (rough figures based on last year), it is demonstrated that drastic increases in cash pricing are not necessarily justified. Saving some of the needless expense thrust on us for the privilege of doing insurance work can have just as dramatic effect on your bottom line.

I don't think so Ira.

With the insurance subsidies gone, the quantity from steering evaporated, the reality of cash pricing would hit home like a freight train between the accountant's eyes.

There is no way prices could decline for more than a month in that scenario, the mounting debt from cash work that in reality is going out the door for less than cost would be instantly disastrous.

They wouldn't even have the quantity of the call center to rely on, to steer consumers in that regard, because once the coverage issue is gone, the unfair competitive advantage issue would rear it's ugly head. There would be NO "chinese wall" for them to hide behind, so, not only do we know they couldn't make it up in quantity, if they tried, it'd be like swimming laps in quicksand. Fast death.

Jeff,

First off, you are paying way too much for your POS to begin with, search for a better alternative.

Next, there are things you can be doing to help erode the networks while still using them. They have vunerable points so my recommendation is to exploit those points and hold tight.

Trust me when I say this, the networks have less than 24 months left. I know that is a bold statement but some things are brewing in the tech world in this industry that will soon level the playing field.

We have to pay the NAGS licensing fee, I think that's the $900.00 Jeff refers to.

NAGS should not be $900! Expect to pay between $150-$200 per user.

I believe this has been said before, but I would gladly pay Nags a "lite" fee, using only the numbers, but not the prices, or the labor times.

I would willingly plug in my own numbers on each based on actual cost plus, and actual hours per job.

Again, as said before, with thousands of net priced parts, we're all doing this to a substantial degree with every single lookup (or at least everyone darned well SHOULD be checking cost every time with all those cotton-pickin' net priced parts) so what's the real issue with pluggin' numbers into the database, and adjusting them up or down by percentage as needed as costs vary?

Admittedly, this would be a pain the first time, and I know this first hand, having just done so with a flat glass inventory database with several thousand parts and labor prodedures, but once the initial work is done, it's database maintenance from there. I spent about a week of hard work with the initial database, then spent about two hours per week adding the not so often used items from there. It's a work in progress, and when done, I go back and montitor everything, make updates, changes, and additions as needed. Sweet. And NO updates from a software vendor that makes me rethink/reinvent the whole process every time. (That's the part that I REALLY LIKE.) I respond to cost variances across the database, or by single item, quickly and efficiently. (Aren'tcha proud of me Hal? I learned that one from you insurance folks)

Seems to me every other business does this. Well, by far MOST other businesses do this. Besides, if cost isn't the way to justify our fees as "fair and reasonable" then why do the networks keep asking for POP? (Yes, Hal, I learned that one from insurers also, when they ask for rate increases from state regulators)

As to the so called "Cash Market", well, if consumers were only interested in price, Nike wouldn't sell any shoes. Sure, there's a marketing aspect, and that's the point that brings this post back to the topic of this string. I look forward to competing in a fair and open market again, just like this industry used to be. All the people that said the old days were gone and never will come back, might just be in for a surprise. Marketing the consumer directly...my goodness, what a concept!

Well I think Ira may be right but I dont think it will last to long. As soon as some of the big guys go to low ball cash prices they will have to go back to the lick & stick method and than end up with more come backs .Once they see how much they lost on the come backs and the damages they have to pay to fix ,I think prices will jump back up quick.I also think that most of the big guys (DT,Safelite ect.) will still chase insurance companies and try and change their minds.
The Tpa's are here for a long while weather we like it or not.

Also Nags glass mate fees are $695 per yr for one user and then $1,995 for up to 5 pc's via a network. They say each additional user on a network is $450.
They have incresed the fee for the glass mate program $100 in the last three years

Suspect: NAGS fee is $900.00/yr plus $50.00 per station (computer/pc) using it.

Cost of doing business + + +
List prices for glass - - -
Insurance Co. Discounts + + +
Labor rates - - -
AGR Shops ((( )))

ATTN: USUAL SUSPECT

REGARDING LINE 2 OF YOUR REPLY, PLEASE SHARE. I WOULD LOVE TO PLAY IN THAT GAME. I'VE ENCLOSED MY EMAIL ADDRESS, SO YOU CAN SHARE THE RULES PRIVATELY IF YOU DON'T WANT TO POST ON THE FORUM, IF THERE ARE THINGS THAT CAN BE DONE, WE SHOULD ALL BE DOING THEM, IT'S IN OUR BEST INTEREST..

WOW $900 A YEAR ,THEY MUST CHARGE BASED OF THE PART OF THE COUNTRY YOU ARE IN BECASUE WE JUST PAID $695.00 FOR ONE USER FOR GLASSMATE IN TX. AND WE PAID $695. PLUS $450.00 FOR EACH ADDITIONAL USER IN OUR OKC SHOP.

Ours was $900.00 + $50.. per terminal (station). OUCH.