An increasing number of automakers have issued position statements requiring original equipment manufacturer (OEM) glass for all windshield replacements. However, many auto glass company owners say that mandate doesn’t match the reality of insurance requirements.
“Requiring OEM glass sounds good on paper, but who’s looking out for shops [to make sure they get paid for it]?” says Patricia Smiley, president of Quackt Glass in Charleston, South Carolina.
Over the past year, automakers such as Ford, General Motors, BMW, Lucid Motors and Volvo have issued updated position statements about glass that strongly recommend or even require OEM glass for each windshield replacement. These position statements frequently say that OEM glass is essential to safe, successful calibrations.
The problem, Smiley says, is that many major insurers require shops to at least try to use aftermarket glass before approving an OEM part.
A Tricky Situation
“Technicians are forced to put in an aftermarket part that they know [from experience] won’t work and attempt to perform a recalibration,” she says. “Then the shop has to show that the recalibration failed before insurers will approve an OEM part.”
Smiley says that most of the time, insurers will reimburse shops for the aftermarket part, but not for the additional labor required to remove the part, install OEM glass, and redo the calibration.
Linda Rollinson illustrates this issue with a story that involves a repeat customer’s BMW. Rollinson owns Superior Auto Glass of Tampa Bay in New Port Richey, Florida.
She says Superior first installed aftermarket glass on this customer’s windshield and, when the windshield-mounted camera wouldn’t recalibrate, brought it to the dealer for glass.
“The dealer recalibrated the rest of the car, but not the front-facing camera,” Rollinson says. “We had to do that again, too.”
By the time everything had been corrected, it had cost Superior and the customer plenty of time and money.
“That customer eventually cracked her windshield again and came in for another replacement,” Rollinson says. “I didn’t even try to replace it with aftermarket glass. I had to work to get the insurer to cover OEM glass instead.”
Talking to Customers
Rollinson explained everything that was happening to the customer, including the insurance coverage complications. That kind of customer education and involvement is crucial in these scenarios, she says.
“Always CC the customer when you submit a request to cover OEM glass,” she says. “The insurer [or TPA] probably won’t include the customer in their response rejecting the request, but you can forward it to them anyway.”
Not only does this keep the customer up-to-date, Rollinson says, it also gives them the information they need to advocate for themselves.
“The insured is the one who ultimately pays the [insurance premium] bill, so they have that leverage with the insurer,” she says.
Rollinson says that customers frequently choose to avoid the time and hassle of getting approval by simply paying the difference between aftermarket and OEM glass themselves.
“And then they start shopping for new insurance,” Rollinson says.
Sean Fagan, owner of Appalachian Auto Glass in Boone, North Carolina, says some of his customers pay for an OEM glass replacement out-of-pocket and later submit it to their insurer for reimbursement.
“I think insurance agents have started recommending that insureds do that, because that’s been happening a lot more, recently,” he says.
Handling TPA Troubles?
While waiting for OEM part approval is time-consuming, some insurers’ third-party administrators (TPAs) respond more quickly than others.
“Safelite Solutions doesn’t list a phone number for shops to contact, so I have to email instead,” Fagan says. “It takes longer to get a response.”
He says he doesn’t have that issue with LYNX Services.
“My request [to use OEM glass] rarely comes back from LYNX as not approved, as long as I explain that I’ve had issues calibrating with that aftermarket part before,” says Fagan.
Still, obtaining insurance approvals takes valuable time from both auto glass shops and their customers, Smiley says.
“It helps to establish certain processes that [can] streamline the situation,” she says. “Take plenty of photos to document any issues you’re having, and set up one email address to receive all of your shop’s recalibration reports [so you don’t have to go looking for them]. Quackt Glass also has a person designated to negotiate with TPAs.”
It’s also important for company owners and managers to adapt their accounting practices to compensate for the extra time between completing a job and receiving payment, Smiley says.
Fagan and Smiley both say that negotiating for OEM part coverage has gotten increasingly complex over the past year or two.
“I’ve never seen it this bad in all of my 23 years in the industry,” Smiley says.
She hopes that insurers and automakers can find a happy medium that benefits both shops and consumers.
“We only want to be paid for the work we do,” Smiley says. “We’re not asking for any more than that.”
No Auto Maker makes their own glass, total smoke show. The dealers don’t belong in the glass business and most if not all don’t do auto glass anyway.
True. But there has been a huge difference in the mounting brackets that the aftermarkets use for the cameras. That combined with the lack of qc on the glass itself makes it hard to get a good quality aftermarket product. I would pay more for an aftermarket glass if I knew it would recalibrate and be defect free. And yes I have had bad quality OEM glass but a lot less frequent. I just wish the aftermarket could get there s**t together and stop trying to pinch pennies at the expense of the glass shops. Another words “DO BETTER”
We the glass shops have enough issues on our hands with the insurance companies, no other company is allowed to short pay an invoice, but the insurance companies sure can. Then when you have fight spending hours trying to get your money, its 6 months to a year, if you do receive it.
Insurance companies have not increased any rates to match current market to include urethane, window tint, etc.
We the glass shops will replace the glass with what the insurance tells us to.
So with this being said and all the smoke being blown up. Then the automakers need to hold the insurance companies accountable and MAKE sure all their dealerships are forced to explain and educate the customer that OEM glass has to be used. So when the consumer purchases their policy OEM is covered.
This is not the responsibility of the auto glass shops. And in our region NOT 1 dealership replaces glass.
It is a shame that customers do not realize that BMW doesn’t make the glass. They buy it from a glass supplier and put their sticker on it. It’s the same with all the other Dealers.