$100 Limit?

[doingitall]

Topic Originally Create in April 2017:

 

Maybe it is just me, but Road America has been pretty good for me for a long time. Anyway, I started noticing about the first of the year that almost every call I get from RA has a $100 limit. Was not that way before. So now nearly every call I take from RA has a customer pay portion. I am in a rural area, rarely do I have a call, even a motor club call that is less than $150. In some ways it may be a good thing, making customers aware of the actual costs of a "free" tow or service. Mostly though I get upset customers, some who have been regular customers that used to have "unlimited" on the coverage limit line.

Anybody else notice a change, or is it just me getting the calls refused by other providers? I used to cover a pretty large area for RA, but now it rarely makes sense to go more than a few miles ...

 

DodgeTowGuy134 said:

It depends on which "client program" has the limits.....IE, ABC Insurance, XYZ Insurance, 123 Auto Manufacture, 987 Auto Manufacture.

Many of the "clients" (those insurance companies and auto makers) are reevaluating their levels of overages and benefits to their customers, which in turn scales back the policy overages we see when preforming services.

It is a "cost control" measure that the clients are looking to control, and remember that the motor clubs have a markup on the services. So for example, lets say that RAMC tow you did is billed from you to RAMC for $150 (including mileage), then the motor club marks it up to $200 and bills the client for $200....the client pays the higher amount out of the policy.

Now, after the client has reevaluated their costs and where they can trim to save some $$$ on their end, while not (up front) letting their customer know that they cut a coverage (they put it in the fine print when they update the roadside assistance coverage language of the policy at renewal time). So that $200 ERS benefit limit paid from the client (insurance) to the motor club gets cut to $150....a cost savings of $50 to the client (insurance). Then, when you get dispatched by the club, they tell you the customer has a $100 benefit limit......Why? It's because they (the club) has to take their cut FIRST on what's billed to the client. That leaves only $100 of benefit limit left and is why we get told to bill the customer for any overages above the $100 limit.

Also, consider this. When your contract with a club says that you MUST bill the customer for any policy overages at your CONTRACT rates, instead of your retail rates, it's not taking $$$ out of their (the motor club) pockets, it comes out of yours, as a "courtesy" to the customer (the customer reaps the savings). Thus, I'm a proponent of not including a contract clause that would require you to bill overage at contract rates instead of retail.

Hopefully this helps explain and understand the workings and why you are seeing more customers with lower limits on the calls you get. When these limits get lowers, the insurance companies "phase them in" at the policy renewals, so that's why you could do one customer of ABC insurance on Monday with a $150 limit and then another customer the following day with only a $100 limit.

This is occurring across the board, with many insurance and auto makers....I'd suggest to ask the customer (and keep track of) which programs they are calling for the ERS assistance thru and that will allow you to be able to track and graph the coverage trends out.