Insurance companies charge higher premiums to insure more expensive vehicles. It makes perfect sense for the labor rate to be more costly for high-end vehicles, since the quality of the vehicle is built to a much higher standard requiring more complicated repairs. I do need to start running my auto body shop more like an insurance company.

Pushing my experiment to the limit, I asked the agent to throw in rental coverage and towing. After all, shouldn't I get a quantity discount for insuring five cars with his company? I thought of how many procedures I've been asked to throw in for the promise of more business and wondered why they would even ask. Ultimately, my agent said he was sorry, but his quotes were as low as he could go. Should I respond the same way?

This has been a great experiment so far.

Let's make a deal

With sixty-eight employees, I decided to bargain a little with my health insurance provider. The quote was again higher than the previous year, and, once more, I asked why. The cost of healthcare coverage is going up and you're lucky to get the quote you have, my agent responded. Somehow I didn't feel so lucky.

For the sake of my experiment, I pushed him for some concessions, like so many insurance companies ask of me. I told them if they wanted my business they needed to give me a discount based on the fact that I have sixty-eight employees and have been with them for years. They told me that this quote was as low as the company could go because the profit on medical insurance is so low that if they sold it for any less they wouldn't make a profit.

Now I've heard this "profit" word from all of the insurance companies I've dealt with during my experiment, leading me to conclude that insurance companies are seriously concerned about their profits. They should be; this is the reason they sell insurance. They sell policies to generate a profit. Isn't that why we are all in business?

Insurance companies are not in the "favor" business. Just mail a premium in one day late, and see how fast your claim will be denied. And it doesn't matter how many years you've mailed it on time. One thing I have learned from this exercise is that insurance companies want to be paid for their service and they will not sell you a policy unless they see it as potentially profitable.

What I have discovered is that the collision repair industry needs to rethink the way we do business; we need to learn from the insurance companies. Just as their primary goal is to make a profit, our primary goal needs to be the same - to make a profit.

There is nothing wrong with profitably being part of your company's mission statement. There is nothing wrong with running a profit-based company. There is nothing wrong with holding your head up and saying "I'm sorry. But if I do this job, it just won't be profitable."

We need to reclaim our industry by keeping the highest standards of integrity, by insisting on doing quality repairs, by only charging what is reasonable and fair for us to be profitable, and by demanding the same respect as professionals that we give to our insurance company clients.

After all, we are not in the "favor" business either.