A CIC committee in the 1990s concluded processing a supplement cost both the shop and the insurer about $150. Adjusting that for inflation to $200 each, Terlep said---acknowledging even that estimate is probably low and does not include rental vehicle costs---means “it’s costing this industry more than $3.3 billion every frickin’ year to improperly write” initial estimates or repair plans.
“We’ve got to come together and figure this out,” Terlep said. “The consumer is unhappy. Shops are wasting their time. Insurers’ personnel are wasting their time. All it takes is for us to get together and figure out how do we fix a broken process that’s costing this industry more than $3 billion a year? I challenge this body, the insurers, the shops and everybody in this room to find a way to get together and fix this problem. Because it’s only getting worse, not better.”
Scan Tool Company Updates User Agreement
At industry meetings this past spring, several speakers noted under the terms of the licensing agreement of at least one aftermarket scan tool used in the industry, the user was agreeing to allow the data collected through the tool to be transferred to the company in China, “subject to China laws, including those governing the privacy and security of your information.”
The Autel end-user licensing agreement indicated a shop user also agreed to notify and acquire consent for such collection and transfer of vehicle data “from each customer or prospective customer,” and to the use of the information by the scan tool company “and third parties.”
At CIC, however, a representative of Autel said that licensing agreement has been updated.
“Everyone who logs into their tool for the first time will be opted in to acknowledge it,” said Paul Marshall, senior product and operations manager for Autel. “If you have any questions or concerns about it, you can contact me directly. This is something we did internally, with legal counsel in New York and back at our headquarters in Shenzhen. I think it’s a huge improvement. What was in there was old and was dated. We’d just kind of lost track of it.”
John Yoswick