Watching Washington

I don’t live in Washington State, but I have sure been watching the fight going on there in the legislature the past few weeks (CLICK HERE for related story from glassBYTEs.com™). It’s been quite an education.

From watching the hearings, it’s easy to see that the insurance lobby is big and powerful and full of lobbyists with fancy suits. Heck, the chairman of the committee was even calling the lobbyist by his first name. They looked pretty chummy. Probably play a lot of golf together too. On the surface, you might think that there’s no chance for the auto glass lobby to be victorious. Well, your wrong. The Independents have already won. Here’s why:

1 - The insurance lobby had to spend big bucks fighting this thing. They had to use valuable resources, time, energy, people and bucks to work to squash an attempt by the legislature to do the right thing. Even Safelite sent a hired gun out there to fight the bill.

2 - There’s an old saying in politics: when you’ve thrown everything you got and nothing sticks, confuse the issue. Well, that’s what these insurance fat cats have had to do in this case. In the end, they tried to confuse the issue by saying passing a bill to allow consumer choice would result in steering, which is bad for the consumer. Funny, Mister Insurance-miester, I guess steering is only okay as long as you are the one doing the steering.

3- The independents have grouped together around the cause quickly and effectively. Using grassroots work locally, they created quite a campaign in a short amount of time.

Insurers like to paint this as a “big chain vs. mom-and-pop” issue. What they, and their legislators, never get is that it is a quality issue. If you have the appropriate insurance and meet their criteria, any network will put you on their list. They have no idea how well you install glass, they don’t know if you are an escaped felon, they don’t know if you are doing drugs or other acts, they don’t know much about you. Mostly all they know is that you’ll do it for their price. The independents have been screaming for years that you get what you pay for. Who installs your windshield is as much a safety issue as who takes out your gall bladder. How’d you like your insurance company to send you a doctor they don’t know much about (except that they’d do the surgery for what the insurance company will pay)? More on this next time.

P.S. By the way, a few of you have asked if I worked for a urethane manufacturer. The answer is no. Never have. Never will. When the editors asked me to come up with a name, I thought it’d be a good one, but no, I’m not one of them. I’m one of you.