NJM Insurance on Tuesday said hello discarded its March 31 deadline for COVID-19 vehicle cleaning charges and instead would reimburse the operation “for that near future.”
The insurer as late as Friday was declaring it would not pay for the work effective April 1.
“Effective 4/1/2021, NJM won't be accepting the charges for COVID-19 clean-up/sanitizing,” NJM general claims division administrator Joseph Pindar wrote in a Friday email, a copy of which was provided to Repairer Driven News.
We reached to NJM Insurance Monday morning and early Monday evening for comment on the rationale for the cutoff.
Early Tuesday evening, the insurer responded and said hello would still pay such charges.
“NJM has always paid a charge to have vehicles cleaned upon the conclusion of repairs,” NJM said inside a statement Tuesday. “In the last 12 months, NJM continues to be paying one more cleaning fee associated with COVID-19. After further consideration, NJM has decided to continue make payment on additional COVID-19 vehicle cleaning fee for that foreseeable future.”
NJM’s comments follow confirmation by USAA — the nation’s fifth-largest auto insurer — that it would extend reimbursement for COVID-19 cleaning through June 30.
USAA had like NJM made plans simply to cover those costs through Wednesday, March 31.
“Miscellaneous expenses have grown from 5.7 percent from the overall spend in CY 2021 to eight percent in CY 2021,” CCC wrote in its 2021 “Crash Course.” “COVID-19 introduced a new fee associated with disinfecting the automobile – a fee often entered like a manual line and therefore also rolled away in to the ‘Miscellaneous Amt.’ In Q1 2021, only one.1 % of all appraisals included a charge – by Q4 2021 it had been over 30 percent. The average fee from March 2021 to December 2021 fell gradually, averaging $46 per appraisal over that time.”
The White House has declared an objective of “getting the country nearer to normal by July 4th” and plans to have sufficient vaccine for every American adult after spring.
Democratic President Joe Biden on Thursday announced an objective of 200 million vaccine shots in his first 100 days at work.
“With 200 million shots within the first 100 days, more than half of adult Americans will have gotten at least one shot by April 29th,” White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said Friday, based on a White House transcript. The COVID-19 vaccines often need a two-shot regimen.
Zients said that “by the end of May we will have sufficient vaccine for every adult within the U.S.,” based on the transcript.
The main COVID-19 threat is “respiratory droplets generated when individuals cough, sneeze, sing, talk, or breathe,” according to the CDC, which continues to advise everyone to put on a mask at their workplace.
“Spread from touching surfaces isn't thought to be a typical method in which COVID-19 spreads,” according to the CDC.
Nevertheless, the agency still advises workplaces to routinely sanitize surfaces to prevent the chance of COVID-19. Additionally, it has issued a separate set of cleaning and disinfecting guidelines when someone has been sick. This includes using items in the Environmental Protection Agency “List N” of approved COVID-19 disinfecting products.
“Respiratory droplets may also find surfaces and objects,” the CDC writes. “It is possible a thief might get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object which has the virus onto it after which touching their own mouth, nose, or eyes.”
NJM does business in New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It had been New Jersey’s No. 2 private passenger car insurance carrier in 2021 with a 13.2 share of the market, according to the Insurance Information Institute.
New Jersey had 4,378 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,071 new probable cases as of about 9 p.m. Tuesday. It registered 22 hospital-reported deaths in the past 24 hours.
