During my years in business, I’ve learned a few things. I’ve dealt with almost every situation this industry can throw at someone. All businesses have their war stories and their learning curves, but in the end we become well-educated businessmen or we don’t survive. The lessons we learn along the way are priceless and I’m sure they total up to MBAs and doctorate degrees in the collision repair business.

We are the experts and know what we are doing. Most of us know how to make money on the worst job in the shop. We have survived because we are some of the best businessmen around. We know more than the collision industry consultants that give us advice. They know a lot about certain things but very little compared to what we know regarding the entire operation.

Insurers tell us we need to run leaner, using numbers to point out areas that need improvement, but no company has ever suggested that raising my prices would be an efficient solution. When insurers try to blame lack of profitability on insufficient knowledge or not running lean enough, I tell them to go pound sand. This is insulting when I know a price increase would  mitigate the problem. Autobody industry professionals know far more about the collision repair business than insurance professionals ever will, yet we treat them like they are the experts.

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With laws requiring auto insurance, insurance companies don’t have to sell their products on merit. What’s so hard about selling something that everyone is forced to buy? It is not all that different than utility companies that provide a mandated service at a price guaranteed to make the company a profit.

So where is the business experience in that? Having an adjuster determine how to repair a vehicle is like having a meter reader tell an electrician how to run the wires. Imagine if you were an electrical contractor and Edison refused to turn on your power unless you ran all of the electrical wiring according to the meter reader’s recommendations.

It’s time for the insurers to stop telling us how to repair collisions. They shouldn’t be allowed to give us recommendations because they have no experience repairing vehicles. We are the experts and telling us that we don’t know how to make money because we are poor businessmen needs to stop.

Would an insurance company sell a policy without having their legal department look it over? Wouldn’t they count the cost and make sure if they offered something that it would be profitable for them. What would they think if we told them what they needed to offer in their policies, like free rental coverage, deductible reimbursement, or we told them they needed to offer free comp and collision because we won’t allow them to charge for it. At the same time they were made liable for how we wanted them to do things. This is how ridiculous things have become. We are out of control, laws are being ignored, the consumer is being misled, and nothing is changing.

The state of our industry is appalling, in my opinion, because we allow ourselves to be pushed around. We are much better at our business than insurer will ever give us credit for. Along with  many good insurance companies, there are also some really bad ones. Either way, I don’t want to trust any of them with my bottom line. I’ve worked for nothing in the past and shame on me if I allow this to ever happen to me again.

My track record proves that I am a good businessman. I wouldn’t allow the meter reader to tell me how to repair a car. Why would I allow an adjuster – someone that knows little or nothing about the actual collision repair – direct me how to repair it. Their agenda is only to cut costs. If their primary training is in cutting costs, why would I allow outsiders to dictate my shop’s prices.

For the amount of money that is required to set up a collision repair shop today, an investor would make more profit by putting the money in a bank account with simple interest. This is no joke. I’ve done the math and if I had put the money invested in my shop in CDs, I would have made close to the same amount of money without going to work.