The overall feeling here is that you and your posts are greatly appreciated..... and they are.... but isn't it lonely out there? Correct me if I am wrong but it looks like you're the only person offering any sort of explanation regarding the whys and where fors of the conflict between the ag shops, NAGS, TPA's and insurance companies....

makes me wonder why................. oh... wait... there's one of the corporate offices on my milk carton

IB-
I guess I have thick skin?

Puns aside, while I do draw some heat, I do get some good ideas to improve my program.

Hal,

just wondering why you are the lone wolf in this quest for knowledge. I am hoping this presence by you on this board works to our Mutual advantage, and you invent the next generation TPA that will not have a conflict of interest, installing, dispatching, and price fixing. I of course would be willing to discuss compensation for giving you the idea. ha ha

Hal, wish I could be sure that by improving yours...you're not harming ours AGAIN. Soon it isn't going to matter a lick to us, we're dropping off the network. We've had it with jobs where we make less than 30% profit, and tired of living in fear of turning one down because "that's grounds for cancellation", refusing a job. If not cancelled then you can never work for the particular insurance company whose job you declined. It's all just too much BS to put up with. I think our energy's are better focused elsewhere, like the commercial, residential area. Unlike some shops we are not dependent on AG, it built the company some years ago, but flat glass profit margins have been over AG for the past two years. Here's the kicker, we haven't been pulling in that much more in FG than in years past, it's just that no one is telling us what we can charge for it, so when we price a job we price it to cover expenses and make a profit. If we have a price increase with FG we just pass it on because no one is dictating our prices, a luxury we no longer have in AG.

Who is hal?

hal was the recipient of the short straw,,, his insurance company is based in columbus, insurance capital of the world and a certain TPA.


his task is to spin insurance company policies to make them more palatable to the glass shops here. In addition to that one of his assigned missions is to convience everyone that life without networks is not possible, and that anyone not following network policy will not survive. He is here to present the human, we want to help you find a way to work with the TPA's side of the equation.

after all examples of people operating outside the network system would be detrimental to the TPA/Ins mission. If shops realized the number of their bretheren surviving without TPA's it might cause more than a little discourse, naturally hal's job is to make sure the sharing of idea's is limited.

IS TPA like the brain wash word that somone told you? I am just curious i get so sick of that word can we just call them dirty *******s instead?

I can almost guarantee that there are representatives from other insurance companies and TPAs that read the messages posted on this forum (but just don't reply to our postings). If you re-read the postings, you will see that they will gather that we are a very fragmented industry and that many of the representatives of it do little but complain without any win-win recommendations.

Oh, and as long as you are charging less for cash than insurance jobs (and mentioning such on this forum), they will continue to assume that we are more than happy with the profits that we receive and will continue to lower our O&A pricing.

Well put Stingray. I couldn't have said it better myself.

We just re signed with lynx after a 10 year break and have only recieved one 4 jobs since July .Lucky for us we dont rely on the network for our jobs or we would have closed down long ago.If it wasn't for one of our accounts requesting that we do it we would still just direct bill.