Insurers loath to meet demand of panelbeaters

Press, 4 May 1984, Page 4

Insurers loath to meet demand of panelbeaters

PA Auckland Insurance companies in Auckland are digging in their heels against a demand from panelbeaters for 28.5 per cent more for their labour. In a circular to insurers, the New Zealand Motor Body Builders’ Association said the $l4 an hour the insurers had been paying for the last three years would no longer be accepted. The repairers now want $lB. The stand-off could lead to repairers refusing to fix cars for insurance companies which keep to the $l4 an hour rate. Insurance companies said that collective attempts by panelhouses to raise their rate 28.5 per cent was “rather offensive.” They were not recognising the new charge and said they would continue to negotiate on a “price for the job basis.” The Auckland manager for A.A. Mutual, Mr Leon Tindale, said the association’s circular to companies was “something of an ultimatum.” “We are prepared to recognise some movement, but the public these days are not particularly impressed with anyone raising charges 28 per cent at a time when inflation was about 3 per cent,” he said. The Auckland branch chairman of the Insurance council, Mr Des McDermott, said that any increase would be passed on to the,motorist through higher premiums, which had re-

mained frozen for about 18 months. The association said that it would hold to the new charges and worried that insurance companies might go outside its members for work to get round the boycott. It said this could lead to safety problems. The Auckland manager for State Insurance, Mr John Graham, said that often there was no way of knowing if repairs had been done by association members. But the industry would have nothing to do with shoddy work for the sake of price-cutting although it was keen to see competition stay in the market-place. In Christchurch, Mr Trevor Roberts, of the Insurance Council, said that the case was restricted mainly to the Auckland area. The Trade and Industry Department said that the proposed increases could violate the Commerce Act and the price and wage freeze regulations. The Canterbury branch manager of 5.1.M.U., Mr A. E. Perry, said that his comShad increased the rate to panelbeaters since the $B-a-week wage order, he would not disclose the size of the increase. The manager of State Insurance in Christchurch, Mr J. Walker, said that his motor vehicle assessors did not work on an hourly basis when estimating the cost of repairs but offered panelbeaters a price for the job which the two parties would then negotiate.