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Letter to the Editor

Play Fair!

The playground cry “It’s not fair!” seems to be hard-wired into the human genetic code. Most parents and educators would agree, I am sure, that this plaintive, outraged whine is voiced by offspring during early childhood almost immediately after the first cute little “Mama.”

The phrase becomes a battle cry for teenagers, whose organizational skills are oddly honed to mentally measuring and tracking lists of adults’ examples of blatant favoritism for other (clearly undeserving) adolescents versus slights against themselves. Outraged teens often seem incapable of grasping the real-world connections between rights and responsibilities, particularly if permission to go out with friends on the weekend is tied to good grades and a clean room!

In the adult world, alas, we often confront situations in which our reflex response is at first “It’s not fair.” Thus, our feature this month on State Farm’s recently reformulated Select Service program is definitely on the Collision Repair Industry’s Must Read Summer reading list.

All the whining and complaining in our industry world will have little impact on State Farm’s implementation of its body shop contractual agreement.

The different perspectives on Select Service participation voiced by body shop owners and managers in our article are well worth reading. What these opinions have in common is that each is based on careful study of State Farm’s requirements and whether or not the contract can fit profitably into the collision repair facility’s business plan.

A question that must be asked is this: Why shouldn’t the biggest customer, rated the fairest player by body shops nationally for several years running, expect to get a fair shake from a partner repair facility? If a body shop is agreeing to work for less to get work from other insurers, and expecting to make up the difference on the bottom line by getting more money from State Farm, I read that practice as not fair - and not good business!

Be fair - and think about raising your rates for the other insurers or dropping direct repair programs that do not make sense for your operation’s bottom line.

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