Frank Cote says that until recently, the office of the Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance did what a lot of state insurance regulators likely do: resolve many consumer complaints in insurers’ favor because of consumers’ lack of insurance literacy. Cote, the former chief deputy insurance commissioner in Montana (after retiring earlier this year), said a key change has helped improve that issue in his state.
“A lot of complaints that were lodged against insurers were being essentially denied by our consumer affairs division,” Cote said at the recent Collision Industry Conference (CIC) in Las Vegas during SEMA week. “[Regulators] were siding with the insurance company, and I got a lot of complaints about that. When I looked into it, what I found was that the consumer just isn’t educated. The consumer doesn’t understand what they’re fighting for. They just know they had paid out of pocket or whatever the situation was. They filed a complaint, the insurer responded, and we closed the file because the consumer didn’t know how to respond.”
The change the department made to improve the situation wasn’t complex.
“A year and a half or so ago, we started allowing the body shop to file complaints on behalf of the consumer,” Cote said. “What that did is, when the response [to the complaint] came from the insurer, there was an educated person on the other side who could then respond. And that ultimately helped resolve a lot of complaints in favor of the consumer.”
Frank Cote (right) was interviewed on stage at CIC in Las Vegas during SEMA week by Aaron Schulenburg of the Society of Collision Repair Specialists.Cote spoke during the meeting as part of a new CIC committee’s podcast-style segment, which consisted of an onstage interview. During the discussion, Cote shared his own recent auto claims experience. He said a neighbor’s parked truck had a transmission failure back in July and rolled down a hill into Cote’s parked truck. The neighbor’s insurer accepted responsibility, and Cote took his truck to Capital Collision in Helena, MT.
“I took it to them for two reasons: One, because I know they’re going to do quality work,” Cote said. “And two, I wanted to see what some of the complaints were that I had heard from non-DRP shops.”
He said the insurer didn’t pressure him on where to take his vehicle.
“But at the end of the day, 25% of the cost of that repair came out of my pocket,” he said. “Things they didn’t want to pay for were safety checks, and they only wanted to pay 50% on the blending. The insurance company is required to make me whole — put me in the position I was in one minute before that wreck. In this particular instance, they refused to pay to take the windows out of the vehicle so it could be painted, stating it could be masked. Well, that’s not making me whole because I’m a hundred percent confident that when that truck was painted at the factory, those windows were not in it. When that gets masked, there will always be a ridge and always a place where you’re going to have potential failure. That did not put me back in my position. So I am battling with the insurance company as we speak.”
Cote said he spoke recently before a state legislative committee, sharing his story and calling for mandated “right to appraisal” clauses in insurance policies.
“I told them I will be made whole, but it won’t be because of anything other than the experience and expertise I have,” he said. “That’s not to sound arrogant. It’s just I’ve been doing this a long time, and the average consumer doesn’t have that, and they’re going to give up. I’ve been in this fight for four months now, and it still hasn’t been resolved, but it will be. No doubt in my mind.”
John Yoswick