The Washington Metropolitan Auto Body Association (WMABA) voiced its support last month of statements by the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) alleging insurer abuse.

WMABA echoed SCRS’ comments on insurers’ questionable business conduct and released a statement on its support of SCRS, which read, “WMABA has experience, both in the recent past and currently, in which our members bring forth issues of insurers abusing relationships with repairers to affect bottom line dollars on a claims level. Recently, a member shop was forced to leverage our association contacts to be paid on an item already clearly stated in all three major database providers. This instance, while having a positive outcome in the end, shows the strain of relations felt on a daily basis. Many of our members maintain to have validated instances of customer steering, of which the insurer vehemently denies. Some of the repairers have been steered away from despite having direct repair relationships. All of the examples given show a clear trend to WMABA that the interactions between repairers and insurers are becoming ever more stressed.”