Posted On: August 25, 2004, 10:06 pm CDT

Posted By: Dan

Bill, you said, "I personally tested this assumption and called a national glass network to replace a windshield in my 1994 Chevrolet pick-up. I was quoted a price of $394.00 for OEM glass to include the installation and urethane kit if I paid at the time of installation. Then I proceed to take my vehicle to the network shop and filed a comprehensive claim with my insurer. I was amazed as the glass company submitted a bill to my insurer for $ 904.32 based on the Mitchell NAGS price without a percentage discount. As expected, my insurer paid the company without questioning the bill. When a single insurer is replacing 33,000 windshields a year it's not worth the expense dollar to examine each and every glass bill for accuracy. The bottom line is "consumer beware"."

You are the VP of claims of a medium sized insurer? By your own words, 33,000 claims per year. Worst case senario is that number of claims multiplied by your difference in price of $510.32. I checked twice to make sure my calculator wasn't fooling me. That would be a total of $16,840,560.00 per year. 16.8 million. Geez man, I'll audit every claim your company encounters for just 10% of what I save you each year. Hell, I don't even need vacation or benefits. How about it Bill, do I get the job?

You are right about one thing. It is definitely consumer beware. Consumer beware of insurance companies who are crying how much money they are losing to fraud, are too lazy to keep the fraud in check and still report record profits each year with exec's and ceo's taking home obscene amounts of salary and bonuses. So where does all that profit come from to pay salaries, bonuses and the fraud losses? My thinking is that the consumer is paying too much for their coverages, and then the honest glass and auto body folks are being cheated out of what should be honest profits for their parts and services.