A lot has happened since my last post: we have a new boss at work, I am hearing Arb cases at home for restaurant gift cards and the glory, and there has been a sea-change in some carriers' procedures.
For example, we have battled 21st Century's long established practice of paying one hour body labor for a car wash on all their vehicles. We doggedly cut this charge from each of their demands, and finally won the point in an Arb case they filed against us.
After sending a copy of the Decision to them with every new deletion of the carwash, they apparently finally got the message: the car wash is not the responsibility of any carrier, and shops routinely do this for customer service, and we now see no more of this charge on their demands! I take personal credit for this policy change, of course.
The other change is with Mercury. They misinterpreted the privacy laws to mean they had to black out all owner and vehicle information in their demand documents. Hello, we need to ID the car so we know it is the one in the loss, and to be able to review the estimate for errors. After much back and forth, they stopped hiding the VIN and plates. Another victory for commonsense!
For example, we have battled 21st Century's long established practice of paying one hour body labor for a car wash on all their vehicles. We doggedly cut this charge from each of their demands, and finally won the point in an Arb case they filed against us.
After sending a copy of the Decision to them with every new deletion of the carwash, they apparently finally got the message: the car wash is not the responsibility of any carrier, and shops routinely do this for customer service, and we now see no more of this charge on their demands! I take personal credit for this policy change, of course.
The other change is with Mercury. They misinterpreted the privacy laws to mean they had to black out all owner and vehicle information in their demand documents. Hello, we need to ID the car so we know it is the one in the loss, and to be able to review the estimate for errors. After much back and forth, they stopped hiding the VIN and plates. Another victory for commonsense!