Just Sayin Blog – Be Smart In 2012

There have certainly been a number of events happening since the first of the year that are effecting or may affect the auto glass repair and replacement (AGRR) industry in 2012. Where to start? Well let’s see:

 

1.    First the earth shook on January 2, 2012, when Safelite® Solutions officially took over the responsibilities for administrating Allstate® Insurance auto glass claims from PGW Lynxservices®. By all accounts Safelite® Solutions must be doing a masterful job in this new role administering claims for Allstate® as I’ve heard from a number of you that your auto glass claims from the second largest insurer in the United States are dramatically lower since the administrator change took place. Mild weather could also be a contributing factor. Adding to the pain of lost units, the pricing for those Allstate® replacements are also lower.

 

Have you seen your auto glass claims with Allstate decline since January 2, 2012?

 

2.    On January 6, 2012, glassBYTEs.com™ reported that Grey Mountain Partners Acquires Binswanger. Binswanger is a truly amazing full-service glass company with its roots going back to 1872 with its first location in Richmond, Virginia. It is certainly great news to hear for all of the Binswanger employees that they have a new owner who is interested in working with them to help build the company. I think that a strong Binswanger is healthy for the glass industry in the United States.

 

How about you?

 

3.    Neil Duffy recently announced in his very well written blog View From The Trenches that he’s considering a new career by starting a ‘new third-party glass claims administrator’. It sounds as though he’s thought it out pretty thoroughly by looking at all the pros of this new venture and I for one think he should go for it. I don’t see any cons.

 

What do you think?

 

4.    Then there is that anonymous letter from a ‘Concerned Citizen’ that surfaced yet again last week titled “New Anti-Trust Concerns”. This letter had a postmark from Bloomington, Illinois, and its resurfacing at this time might have some relationship to #1 above.

 

It does seem pretty obvious that the letter was written by someone in the auto glass industry as no one else would really care about the issue. The letter does raise a number of interesting points, but the conclusion of the ‘Concerned Citizen’ is that:

 

‘While the relationship between a TPA and its insurance company clients may not be illegal, the abuse of that position could be unfairly excluding independent competitors.’

 

There are a number AGRR initiatives taking place in various states where attempts are being made to try to restrict the big guy from taking your lunch money day in and day out. If one of them was successful it would certainly be good for independents in the industry.

 

Are there any legislative initiatives happening in your state that will be of any help to you in your business?

 

5.    For those of you who happen to follow @Safelite on Twitter you may have seen them sending out ‘Tweets’ asking for your input. One ‘Tweet’ poses a question to its followers and directs you to a web page survey question asking ‘How likely are you to recommend Safelite?’ Safelite® gives you the opportunity to answer with a ‘Not Likely’ – 0 score to an ‘Extremely Likely’ – 10 score.

 

I’m not sure to whom exactly Safelite® is targeting the question, but you’ve got to provide an email address in order to answer the question which is somewhat problematical. If you’d like to offer your view anonymously I guess you could use a fake email address.

 

I know what my number is in answer to the question. What number would you mark as your answer?

 

6.    And finally there was an article in the Chicago Tribune on January 18, 2012, reporting that the average age of vehicles in the United States has climbed to 10.8 years. The article stated that in 2010 the average age of vehicles was 10.6 years with the average age of vehicles having climbed steadily since 1995 when it was at 8.5 years. Over the past several years low new vehicle sales has certainly been a major factor in the increase in the average age, but with new car sales picking up new car manufacturers are expecting a great year in 2012. That will help to slow the growth in average age and hopefully bring it down. What does average age have to do with the AGRR industry?

 

One byproduct of an aging vehicle fleet is that you see an increasing number of the ‘do nothings’ (consumers that delay replacements) when auto glass breaks. Consumers obviously will be more accepting of a repair over replacement if the vehicle is older. New vehicles typically provide a higher average invoice value since the only replacement glass initially available to consumers will be auto glass manufactured for the vehicle by the Original Equipment Manufactured (OEM) glass company (i.e. Pilkington-NSG, PGW, Saint-Gobain Sekurit, etc.). The cost for non-OEM manufactures to reverse-engineer a replacement part for new vehicles is initially too expensive due to the low volume of parts needed in the aftermarket. The older the age of the vehicle fleet the more opportunities for non-OEM suppliers to sell reverse engineered replacement parts that are typically cheaper than the OEM’s. Ultimately that can mean less profit for the AGRR industry as a whole. New vehicle sales should mean more profit opportunities for those in the AGRR industry.

 

What do you think?

 

 

I hesitate to mention other things going on so far this year that may have an effect on your business like the lack of a severe winter in the East, the predictions for much higher gasoline prices later this year, a sputtering economy, the price changes that have taken place in the State Farm® Insurance Company auto glass program and various people coming and going from here to there. How you’re dealing with the variety of issues that you’ll face in 2012 will determine how you survive the year. Someone I’ve known for a long time in the industry commented to me last week that, ‘2012 is shaping up to be a watershed year for many in the industry. Survive this year and hope that next year will be a better one.’ That outlook makes sense to me. We’ll see if he’s right.

 

In closing, a former Princeton University men’s basketball coach by the name of Pete Carril wrote a book titled “The Smart Take from the Strong”. It’s a great book. Pete Carril was 5’6” tall, he was an All-State Pennsylvania high school basketball player, an Associated Press Little All-American in college and he coached at Princeton for 29 years before going on to the NBA to become an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings. Coach Carril is also a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. When he was young man his father told him:

 

            ‘The strong take from the weak, but the smart take from the strong.’

 

So be smart in 2012!

 

Just sayin’…….