The board of directors of the Mid-Atlantic Glass Association (which has members and influence in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Delaware and parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and West Virginia) has voted unanimously to endorse a paper calling for a 90 delay in implementation of the National Auto Glass Specifications rebalancing due to take effect February 28.
Here is the MGA's position paper:

MGA URGES A 90-DAY DELAY

In response to several requests from our members, the Mid-Atlantic Glass Association has established a position with respect to the proposed NAGS rebalancing and resultant insurance company, network, manufacturer, and supplier reaction.

The MGA advocates a 90-day delay in the proposed implementation of new NAGS, and the resultant insurance industry interpretations. This is a complicated and emotionally charged issue, however, we will try to sort out the main points that resulted in our position.

· Revenue Neutrality? - If the rebalancing is truly neutral, why hurry? One can make an argument for or against the neutrality of the rebalancing itself, but once the insurance company offers are received, additional variables are added. When you take multiple new list prices, and multiple new insurance company responses in multiple markets, you have a statistician's nightmare. How can most glass shops sort through the myriad of offers, make sound business decisions, and then implement the results of those decisions accurately enough to maintain revenue neutrality, not to mention EDI-compliance? What is the downside of asking for more time in the face of alleged neutrality?

· Virtually all major manufacturers and large distributors have decided not to go along - this results in a "disconnect" which requires no explanation.

· Muddled, mixed, and/or predatory insurance industry response as evidenced partly by the following:
1. Confusing & inconsistent labor computation methodologies. Some insurance companies have actually preserved the concept of a flat labor charge, while others have gone to an hourly rate. Still others use a "hybrid approach".
2. Failure to embrace the spirit of fair & accurate urethane reimbursement, commensurate with the original rebalancing concepts of accurate and fair allocation of proper cost/selling to the appropriate components of the installation.
3. We have several reports of insurance companies mandating steeper discounts shortly before the intended rebalancing effective date.

· No glass industry leadership or consensus - Various industry entities have weighed in with a variety of opinions, usually couched in "corporate bureaucratese" with "double talk" exceeding "straight talk".

· "Spreadsheet Cherrypicking" vs. Customer Service? - Several of our members have opined that, based on the new NAGS, that profitability analysis on a part-by-part basis will result in the cherrypicking of jobs within insurance agreements in a magnitude never before seen. Is this consequence beneficial to anyone?

It is the opinion of this organization that more time is needed to analyze the interaction of the new NAGS with the new trading partner agreements. Ninety days is fair - why rush to replace a bad system with a possibly dysfunctional one? We propose that, come February 28th, our members consider billing at the current NAGS structure until June 1st.