What happens to hornets during the winter? I ask because walking through our parking lot the other day I nearly banged my head into a brown, cone-shaped nest hanging low from a tree. A couple summers ago I had to sneak up at night to spray about a gallon of poison on a similar home hanging from a lilac tree in my yard. In the morning most of the insects (later identified as Bald-Faced Hornets) had been effectively whacked and lay motionless on the ground. Still, there were some hangers-on, creeping out the dime-sized hole in the bottom of the nest. The nest made for a great show-and-tell piece for my son's second-grade class, but to this day I don't pass beneath that tree without looking for angry survivors.
Last month prior to NACE in Las Vegas our industry avoided banging its head into our own hornets' nest during Collision Industry Conference (CIC). For those who weren't in the room, the issue arose when one committee presented findings from a study hinting that the insurance community was intentionally writing low estimates. Nothing new here, since most estimates are followed up with supplements that fill in the final repair costs. Nonetheless, the implications were that consumers were getting taken by a dishonest process driven by insurers. The study in question was not performed scientifically, and therefore, many in the room felt it was not entirely accurate and needed further development.
What stirred up the proverbial nest was a scheduled non-CIC sanctioned press conference on the issue that presumably would have cast insurers in a negative light. The CIC body eventually voted to strongly urge press conference organizers to cancel the event, which allegedly would have included members of the national media, not just trade press. Organizers complied, but the debate over the issue has raged on ever since, via e-mails, Internet blogs and some reports.
Without a doubt we often debate issues to death and take too long to act on topics that don't require a signed order from the Pope to move forward. In this instance, however, waiting on a more accurate study was not only appropriate, but responsible.
As an industry our public image is everything. I've written about it before in this column and the National Auto Body Council even conducted a contest during NACE encouraging attendees to make suggestions for enhancing our image. Anything that would harm that image, especially on a national scale, could be catastrophic.
Many leaders within the industry have spent years developing better relations with insurers. Task forces have been built on the premise that working together is better than working against each other. Whether you agree or not, there have been positive results from those efforts — think about recent efforts to standardize some DRP requirements. The truth is nobody wins if consumers are brought in by shops to settle a score with insurers. And the insurers will storm away, not walk away, from those relationships aimed at building bridges.
Bald-Faced Hornets are extremely protective of their nests and will sting repeatedly if disturbed. This news conference certainly had the potential for being a big stick striking a blow on the side of the insurance industry nest. I can only imagine how many stings shops would have suffered had such a swing of the stick taken place.
Michael Willins
