Windshield Repair in 5 years

[Glassguru]

Where is the windshield repair business goinf to be in 5 years??? Anyone?? I have my views, but would like to hear from others.

Glassguru

[repare-brise]

I trust that in 5 years Ws repair will be more popular, and hopefully somewhat regulated. .I have been working on a type of reform programme to present to insurance co's here in Quebec once I have enough technicians to cover the province. It is in the goal of getting more work for my franchisee's, reducing insurance costs, reducing claims for the insurance co's. I have support from a few large insurance brokerage firms, and we are doing tests in a few towns for a local only insurace co-operative,Feel free to present it to your insurance co's in the states, you never know it might work for you as well, here is the big picture

- Only WS repair techs are approved to do repairs, not replacement shops
- To be an elegable WS repair tech you must not do replacements(in other words no conflict of interest)
- Replacement can only be performed once an approval number has been given by the ins co. The approval number will only be given once a WS repair tech has prononced the WS non repairable. The ws repair tech will advise the ins co of the dammage, a fee of $20 will be sutracted from the WS replacement shops bill and forwarded to the S repair tech.
- WS repair will no longer be considered a claim(it is generaly not, but if a person abuses then non-claims do become claims) if the customer has less than 3 per year, at the 4th ws repair claim, the customer is cited with one claim in there file.
- If the customer refuses repair when tech deams it to be repairable, they repalce the WS at there cost, no insurance involvement.
- Ws repair techs must provide a lifetime warrenty on there repairs
Curently in Quebec 78% of glass claims are for repalcement, we are aiming for 25% repalcement and 75% repair(this would save the ins co's about $170,000,000 in Quebec alone).
- Brokers would not be penalized for repairs either, currently the ins co's treat a repair claim like a full claim, and the broker is penalized.
- Repair techs must pass a written and practical test to be acredited by the ins co(no cost to the tech if he passes the test), only acredited techs will be authorized to do the repairs. Techs must be insured(liability), bonded, and incorperated(I believe you call it a limited liability company).

A scheme like this could also work in the US(should work better since you guy's have more WS repair only techs on the road). It promotes repairs, reduces the chance of bad repairs(testing, certification, incorperation), and eliminates the present situation of conflict of interest with replacement shops

Merci

[kenb81]

I like lot of your ideas but i dont know if insurace cop. would go for it or would implement the ideas
i agree windshield replacement shops dont do the quality repairs that we do, they want the repair to fail and get the bigger bucks {not all replacement shops} and there is alot of bad techs out there that have a kit and think they know how to do repairs but
they dont and only giving w/r a bad name