An Illinois law enacted in August will help shield collision repair shops from any indirect impacts of accepting cars delivered by illegitimate tow truck companies.
“There are times where a tow truck company might have an address listed on the receipt that they give you, but you do research and find out that there's no address located to where that tow truck company came from,” said Beth Seberger, president and legislative co-chair for the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers of Illinois (AASPI).
Enacted Aug. 1, Senate Bill 2040 (SB 2040) requires tow truck companies to list their primary business location and all locations of secure vehicle storage areas, and to notify the Illinois Commerce Commission in writing of any change in, or addition of, a primary business location or vehicle storage location.
Under the new law, a business that lists a primary site or storage location that the company “does not have a right to use or occupy by virtue of ownership or a written lease” could sack the company’s towing authorization, known in Illinois as a “commercial vehicle safety relocator registration.”
The new statute also prescribes denial, suspension and/or revocation of the above registration if a person not disclosed on the registration application is found to be operating the company.
Operators whose registrations are denied or revoked won’t be allowed to reapply for a new registration for “up to 3 years” from the date of the application denial or registration revocation.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s signing of SB 2040 follows the City of Chicago’s April enactment of a related ordinance. That city law provides for the ability to sue towing companies and to impound tow trucks that engage in the practice of appearing at crash scenes pretending to represent insurance companies only to transport damaged cars to lots and charge car owners in excess of $1,000 to reclaim their vehicle.
“The next thing you know, the vehicle owner's car is impounded, or they end up with a lien on it because of these charges that they never really authorized in the first place,” added Seberger, who is director of operations for New Lenox, IL-based Probst Collision LLC, in addition to her AASPI post.
She said she believes the new state law builds on the Chicago ordinance clamping down on spurious tow companies.
Starting July 1, 2026, the Illinois secretary of state will suspend any tow truck registration flagged by the Illinois Commerce Commission as belonging to an owner who failed to satisfy any fine or penalty issued by the commission, per the new law, which Democratic state Sen. Celina Villanueva introduced in February.
Prior to registration suspension, the secretary of state will notify tow truck companies they have 30 days to present a notice from the commission certifying the owed fines or penalties have been resolved or that the certified report was in error.
“You can't just pick an address off of Google that's an open lot somewhere and call yourself ‘so-and-so tow company,’ and that’s what we have right now in Illinois,” Seberger said. “There might've been requirements for having a business license or things like that, but there was no follow-through and checkup” on whether towing companies were acting aboveboard.
Seberger’s family-owned repair shop has seen two cases where insurance companies totaled their customers’ vehicles as a result of astronomical towing invoices, she said.
“One had a tow bill that was over $12,000,” Seberger noted. “There was nothing the vehicle owner or even the insurance company could do to combat that.”
Brian Bradley