A bill amending New York’s shop choice law to preserve collision repairer autonomy on part selection has returned for any fifth legislative try.
Assembly Bill 6902 would append Insurance Law 2610 to report that first-party collision and comprehensive insurers could not “require a repair facility to utilize a specific vendor or process for that procurement of parts or any other materials essential for the repair of a motor vehicle.”
That’s it. New york Auto Body Repairmen’s Association Executive Director Ed Kizenberger on Thursday noted the bill’s simplicity.
“There’s nothing hidden,” Kizenberger said. “… It’s so simple.”
The concept of an insurer requiring direct repair program facilities to utilize a specific parts procurement platform has been controversial. But Kizenberger said the issue of insurers imposing in the part buying process continues to be an issue for shops beyond direct repair program networks.
He gave the example of a hypothetical hood costing $100. An insurer might have to have a non-DRP shop buy a $75 version offered by a random vendor the carrier has found. Or an insurer will refuse to guarantee any part except the specific component they selected.
“It truly is a consumer bill,” Kizenberger said.
Let the repairers determine where they source parts, he said. Also, he pointed out that as body shops, “we own it” in terms of liability for that overall repair.
“Currently, insurance providers have been directing auto repair businesses to procure their parts from an online source and can only reimburse the repair shop if they do so,” an AB 6902 justification on the New York Legislature’s website states. “The internet source only offers the repair shop with the cheapest replacement part, often times from outside the state. These replacement parts are most often not Original Equipment Manufactured parts and therefore are of sub-quality and not as much as probably the most stringent safety standards. This bill simply allows auto repair centers to carry on to obtain replacement parts from local suppliers and to ensure that these parts are of OEM quality.”
AB 6902 was sponsored by Rep. Steve Englebright, D-Setauket. It has support from 15 other Assembly sponsors, but no Senate companion has yet arisen.
The bill was introduced Monday and has been delivered to the Assembly Insurance Committee.
