Comment

Comment by Jordan Hendler on May 5, 2010 at 10:02am

MARYLAND LEGISLATION UPDATE
You should already know that the House Bill 1199 has been awaiting signature by the Governor. What you have not learned from our Press Release is how the process worked.

Summary:
For those of you who have been following along in our almost two year process to correct the salvage threshold issues arising from 2008 senate bill 568, you have seen the difficulties and challenges we were facing from the onset. How do we correct what has been put in place?

What it took was many meetings with the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) to find out how the marketplace interpretations could be corrected either in Regulations—to be promulgated by the MVA—or by a bill, proposed by the association.

Once it was determined that we needed a bill to correct much of the issue, we went back to Delegate James Malone of the Environmental Matters Committee, to ask for his help. After his agreeing to submit a bill on our behalf, the work really began. We had several meetings with Del. Malone’s staff and the industry stakeholders, including representatives of WMABA, insurance companies, salvage dealers, and auto dealers. Several meetings later, the amendments to the bill began to flow.

Fast forward several meetings, bill hearings and work sessions, now we are looking at the bill that passed the House. Moving over to the Senate side, we faced opposition from Insurance Auto Auctions (IAA) because of the inclusion that all vehicles—regardless of repair values— acquired by the insurance companies would now be marked salvage. However, in spite of their opposition, we were able to get the bill passed on the last day of session.

WHEW! Now, once we have the bill signed we will still be meeting with the MVA and other stakeholders to determine the correct definition language and inclusions for “Cosmetic damage”, but we are optimistic that this will curb much of the issue we’ve been facing since 2008.

Any news will be immediately forwarded on to the membership.

Comment by Jordan Hendler on September 17, 2009 at 3:30pm

I recently participated in the SCRS Affiliate Association Conference - and all I can say is WOW! What a great opportunity for associations to work together and learn from the activities of others. I thoroughly enjoyed the feedback given by all of the individual presentations made by each one, and look forward to another full year of us continuing these discussions on all of the SCRS Affiliate and Legislative concalls.

Our association is continuing to thrive in spite of harsh economic times for all of our members. We continue to push the information out to them through the Hammer & Dolly magazine as well as through our membership newsletters and our meetings. We recently spent time with the Maryland Insurance Commissioner to discuss issues relating to the recent total loss legislation and the regulations we need for the issues to be resolved. That same day we went to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration to discuss their time frames relating to the regulations, and with some prodding we are now looking at something coming this fall. I consider that a success for our lobbying efforts in MD!

In Virginia, we are also going to be hosting another Meet-N-Greet in the Richmond market to push forward initiatives there. I'm looking forward to the proposal of a chapter there within WMABA. Keeping my fingers crossed on that!

We're continuing our fight to push education initiatives, and to begin the process of having our Jerry Dalton Memorial Education Fund give out some scholarships this year. I know that it could not be more needed and vital to retaining our students that are upcoming in this industry.

Look for us to have a Membership Dinner Meeting in November, and an Educator's Forum in February or March!

I'll be posting more as things happen for us here in VA/MD/DC!

Comment by Jordan Hendler on July 3, 2009 at 4:51pm

As the Executive Director for the Washington Metropolitan Auto Body Association, I am excited that we now have this group available for our collision repairers in the Mid-Atlantic region (MD, VA, and DC).

My hope is that it provides an online place for our members to discuss issues, have conversations about various related topics, as well as meet new and different fellow repairers. I look forward to the interaction!

Comment by Jeanne Silver on July 3, 2009 at 2:42pm

I am very excited to see where this goes with the group. As always so much great information comes from WMABA. What a treat!

Comment by Collision Hub Admin on July 3, 2009 at 10:29am

Collision Hub is proud to have the Washington Metropolitan Auto Body Association in groups.