While reading my weekly copy of CRASH [info@crashnetwork.com] on Saturday I came across a paragraph about Open DRPs in Montana. This brought back memories of when this idea was bantered about in several circles during the 90's. Montana presently has a law. that is three years old, which requires insurers to open their DRP programs to any shop that meets the insurers criteria and wants to be part of the program. Montana really is a good place for a program like this to work because they don't have a ton of collision shops and any shop owner caught doing something wrong would be tarred and feathered, hung or simply shot. There is something to be said for life in the old west. For the rest of the country nothing like this exists and maybe it is time to revisit the issue.

Open DRP programs always made sense to me. Insurers want to reduce overhead and control costs and what better way than to allow all who qualify to be part of the network. They might have a few more re-inspectors, but insurers would have a lot less need for estimators and office staff. Although there would be problems getting everybody on board to follow the same rules the overall savings would be worth it to the bean counters.

Collision repairers could join as many programs as they wanted all they would have to do is meet the criteria. Insurers might tighten up their criteria to attract only the best of the best, but still the programs would be available to anybody. What does that mean? Very simply the tougher the criteria the better. Lets say that one insurer wanted a given number of training hours per year. Wouldn't that mean that the quality of work that came out of their network shops would be better than average? Especially if the training requirements were on current model vehicles. What if the shops were required to have a quality control process in place. Wouldn't that help modernize the industry. The opportunities are endless for improved shop performance which benefits everybody. There would be less consumer complaints and comebacks, which saves the insurer and body shop money. Insurers would retain more of their policyholders because they wouldn't hear about as many complaints while repairers would not waste time fixing a car a second time for free.

The benefit for consumers is obvious. With more shops on each insurer's DRP there is less chance that any attempt would be made to direct the customer to a specific shop. It will be easier for the customer to find a shop near their business or home which means less hassle and a more contented insured.

Insurers will probably say that flooding the market with shops on their DRP program will not allow them to refer enough business to any particular shops. Well they won't actually say that, but that is what they will really mean. Insurers have always like to tell their DRP shops that they will see more business, but in reality with claims down so far it is impossible to keep their present DRP partners busy. So why not have more shops on more DRPs thus maybe the business will be spread out on a more equal basis. Even Allstate can't keep their Sterling Shops busy, at least in Michigan where they have given up the Ghost at their large facility on the East side. In fact they no longer have any fairly large facilities left in Michigan. If Allstate can't keep their own stores busy what chance to other insurers have of keeping their present DRP shops full. After all Allstate is number two in the country and they have a lot less insurer owned shops than other companies have DRP shops. Since one company can no longer keep their network shops busy doesn't it make sense that if there was an open market shops could obtain several more DRPs and pick up additional work that way.

This may be a pipe dream, but the present selection system isn't ideal for anybody so wouldn't it be better to see if an open DRP really worked.

Is there a downside for insurers? Yes, the idea might not work, but in the process the insurance company will find out who the best performers are and they might not be all of the shops they presently have on their programs.