Me as a Consumer Activist? Most of you would never confuse me with obnoxious consumer groups who do the bidding of trial lawyers. I thank you for that. However, there is a consumer issue included in a bill by Senator Pat Wiggins (SB 1167) that gives cause to worry.
This ill-advised legislation will impact drivers when they are in an accident – and that likely means all of us in California at some point. SB 1167 will prevent drivers from obtaining information about auto repair options, including body shops that are pre-qualified with insurers and meet established standards of excellence. Pre-qualified shops are reviewed by companies and confirmed as giving high-quality service, the fewest inconveniences, and the best guarantee (possibly lifetime) on the work.
That’s information I want to have when choosing a shop to repair my car. I want to be fully informed, but apparently Senator Wiggins thinks that’s a bad idea. She would want me to play a guessing game – wondering if I’ve chosen a good body shop because I’ve been prevented from learning about other options. Her bill provides that once a driver has “chosen” a body shop, an auto insurer is prohibited from describing alternatives, including alternatives that have been vetted for quality standards and that provide a lifetime guarantee of the work performed.
How can someone truly have “chosen” when they’re not allowed to get adequate information? Keeping consumers at this level of disadvantage is exactly the aim of the small group of body shops behind this bill. The more they keep consumers in the dark, the easier it is to drive up their profits.
Again the profit motive of a small special interest drives the actions of an activist legislator. And consumers be damned.
We all know that information is empowering. The more that we have, the better equipped we are to make the best decisions for us. Consumer groups, which make names for themselves purporting to be champions of the consumer getting more not less information when contemplating a transaction, should be up in arms about this bill. But they aren’t, and I welcome feedback from some of them like Doug Heller, Amy Bach and Norma Garcia to explain the reason for their silence.
SB 1167 should be condemned for what it really is – a blatant attempt by a small group of greedy body shops to increase their profits by undercutting consumer choice.
March 28th, 2008 at 12:00 am
You are exactly correct. The worst situation is when an insurance company actually OWNS the repair facility, and then steers claimants into unethical repairs. This is not just a speculation, but a reality.
The Caliber Collision chain in Southern California was taken over by the Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club of Southern California in 2001 with a purchase of stock and a management contract. The insurance company steered numerous claimants into Caliber. Caliber would overcharge for work, do unnecessary work, and fail to fix errors on thousands of customers. It got so bad with the complaints to the Bureau of Automotive Repair that Attorney General Bill Lockyer sued Caliber for $60 million. Eventually they settled with restitution offered to over 50,000 customers!