In a session at the annual IGA meeting Jerry Mattison, Star Windshield, discussed his experience with arbitration from the early 1980s when he started in business to today.

He said that as short pays started occurring in the early 2000s, he started taking the insurance companies to arbitration. After one case, the attorney asked him, "Can we talk?" He said yes and the attorney said he wanted to work out a "reasonable" payment and the terms offered were reason able for Mattison.

"Arbitration allows you to negotiate prices and it is the only way you can get insurance companies to negotiate," he explained.

Mattison said that insurance companies do not want to go to arbitration because "It costs them more than what the short pay was."

He discussed how arbitration work in Minnesota, which is where his business is located, and what factors are taken into account in arbitration (such things as what is fair and reasonable and what is safe).

"At first the idea of arbitration was daunting, but it's gotten easier," he told the audience. "I can do it and you can do it."