A lot of hard work went into this!

http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=1c95961cc615b77126e41b646&id=596fcfae62&e=1972c90045

Gary,

I am from Minnesota and would like to thank you and the IGA for all the hard work!

Ben,

You can thank your fellow MN shops and the MGA as they deserve all of the credit. Some of the shops that have provided direct assistance are IGA members and through the use of their IGA included member benefits, such as Total Shop Management, were able to easily provide the information necessary to yield these results.

The work is not over and there is much left to accomplish so please support your state chapter any way you can.

Gary

PS. Mike Reid from Alpine Glass and Rick Rosar from Rapid Glass did remarkable work on this. Congratulations to the both of them!

Thank you Gary for bring this here. Thanks to Mike, Rick, and all the other true independent shops that are in this fight. This is HUGE. All MN shops should check out MGA, Mn Glass association, and the IGA as this is just the start of great things to come.

This is way overdue to stop the tactics killing this industry. I hope that the dept of rev is in the loop, because the losses are enormous. Independent shops should hang on to all documentation around this and let's go INDEPENDENTS! This could be a real good year!

I am just starting my arbitrations. I hope to soon be able to draw a wage from my business after 3.5 years. Once that haooens, I plan to do all I can to help the fight. Thanks to all current MGA and IGA members and the other shops that have led the way.

Ben collecting the money you are owed is so very rewarding. The first step is the hardest and it just gets better from there. Keep up the good fight!

Do we know if the State of MN will start looking at other companies that use Safelite Solutions? I wonder how long until Safelite sues the State?

Good questions Ben. 1st question, I would like to think that this is a beginning. It makes no sense to just cherry pick 1 insurer. But I don't know the details, so I would think it would make no sense to stop with 1 battle in this war. Details don't matter at this point but progress does.

2nd question just my NLHO They don't really have much ground to stand on. Precedence has been set, all the way to The MN Supreme Court. "Legally" the insurers with the help of their cohorts, (tpa's), are losing the battle so My opinion is they will keep trying "legislatively" to stop or undermine the Independent shops trying to maintain some form of "fair and reasonable". All eyes and ears are on this, and hopefully Independent shops get with the program and turn up the heat. It is a brand new "YEAR OF THE FIGHT".

Safelite could appeal to the supreme court or possibly bring suit against the commerce department, both are long shots. The Auto Club group agreed to these terms to avoid a hearing.

From what I understand, there are other insurance companies facing similar action from the MN Commerce Commissioner. You can follow along at home by doing your own public information searches at

https://www.cards.commerce.state.mn.us/CARDS/security/search.do?method=showSearchParameters&searchType=new

Select the area of interest as Enforcement Actions

The whole point here though is that it took the shops to provide the evidence in order for action to be taken. Once the "evidence" was provided, action was easier to take and it made it very hard for the carrier to deny.

Shops have to be involved. The associations can help with guidance on what to collect and how to collect but it is up to the shop to do the heavy lifting. Yes, this can happen in other States.

The most entertaining part of the whole thing is SGC got thrown under the bus by AAA, ran crying to the courthouse, and were told they don't have standing to complain to the court. Waaaaa. They'll have to sue the commissioner next. Perfect!
Minnesota rewiewed less than 100 glass claims. Based on that small sample, they determined that SGC was scandalous and that AAA was complicit. They threatened AAA's license to sell insurance in MN for Pete's sake! That's a very bad day. Then AAA was offered what amounts to a plea bargain...and they jumped on it, of course, tossing SGC aside...as though they were to blame. Ouch! It was a bad day in Columbus, too.
I applaud the tenacious efforts of those ladies & gentlemen that brought about this news. Getting a lot this sort of illegal behavior (well-documented, of course)in front of the bureaucrats that can apply the heat in states across the country is the key. The bureaucrats have the admin power SGC can't sue away, but if they are unaware, they won't do anything. But if they are MADE aware, they have little choice but to take a look at it. Once they take a good look at it, we're seeing what can happen. The squeeky wheel...

...and Tony Aquila and Paul Gross are singing "Oh Happy Day"! Tony must be the luckiest guy in the world. Buys Lynx and then sees his top competitor start to self-destruct.
I wonder if Minnesota is handling the Consent Orders in alphabetical order...and AAA was just the first. One can only hope.

QUOTE MICHIGAN


"..and Tony Aquila and Paul Gross are singing "Oh Happy Day"! Tony must be the luckiest guy in the world. Buys Lynx and then sees his top competitor start to self-destruct.
I wonder if Minnesota is handling the Consent Orders in alphabetical order...and AAA was just the first. One can only hope."


I doubt anyone is celebrating in the TPA world, LYNX and the other alphpabet soup TPAs are equally guilty of using the same techniques with customers. TPAs are equal, there is no good TPA.
Here's a broad brush blanket statement: not a single TPA has the authority to influence/negotiate price without invoking the "right to repair" clause contained in the policy.

Ever wonder what happens to the penalty fee; you'll notice the insured who incurred the loss never sees restitution.



Who is the Customer?

opps has a good suggestion, but this by itself, is only a start. BUT a GREAT start.

And YEAF is correct this isn't just for safelite, but all TPA"s There are no "good" tpa's. And yes I wonder what happens to the $$$$$$$ from the fines. So who is really taking the loss. The customer gets damage, the repair facility does proper work to restore the damaged customer, customer gets satisfaction, but the shop has deal with crap pricing, and diminished profits, so who really loses? Is this the consumers loss or the repairer?

real progress will be made when one of the big national contracts is cancelled. i.e. Allstate, Farmers, Nationwide or American Family.

Remember when Allstate cancelled the TPA deal in 2000 (?) ?. Probably take more than just one big contract cancellation in 2015 to cripple the Evil Empire.

Karma in action.

Curious to see what spin the PR folks out of headquarters puts on this.

I bet some heads roll in the next week or two. Maybe throw some innocents under the bus and blame mid-level folks for the running of the MN markets. Nobody in the "C" suites will be touched.

Nobody would want to be the guy that meets the Netjets plane when it comes in from London! Thinking this counts as a F--- Up!

The last thing SGC and AAA want to see now is this news being splashed all over the internet, the national news picking it up, and the public at large being made aware of their scandalous and illegal business practices. Seems to me that getting the news out there widely is the task at hand now if creating significant pressure for change is the goal. This news is like a golden key that we've never seen before...who knows what doors it will unlock.
Post it everywhere...websites, blogs, forums, etc. Create links on your own websites. Use a dormant domain to post the Consent Order with good text and key words for search engines to find. Tag it "for informational purposes only".
Knowledge is power, folks. Informed consumers will fight the fight with us if they are aware of the scandalous, illegal conduct. Consumers don't like to do business with slimesters. And given the choice, they generally won't.
Kudos to the studs in Minnesota that made this happen! I'd like to buy you all a steak dinner...and if they'd quit steering my jobs away I could afford to do so.