SGIO tender scheme still under attack

News

The dispute between WA repairers, MTA-WA and SGIO Insurance has continued to simmer, with all parties intent on improving the situation.
Over the last few months, Peter Fitzpatrick and Noelle Simons from MTA-WA have been talking to NRMA/SGIO about the problems they see inherent in the tender process launched by the insurer last year, and the bad feeling it has caused in the industry in WA.
An initial meeting took place in Sydney in September with NRMA acting CEO, Ian Brown, and two other NRMA executives. Several other meetings followed, also involving MTA-SA, which has similar concerns over SGIC's tender scheme in South Australia.
NRMA advised that the company is willing to continue dialogue with MTA-WA and the repairers through a small working group. It acknowledged that the relationship between the insurance company and the industry has been seriously damaged, said Simons.
Simons said NRMA executives admitted to taking some collateral damage over the scheme, and said in order to rectify this it is necessary that the working group participants not dwell on what has taken place in the past, and instead focus on what is occurring now.
MTA-WA has taken the issue into the political arena and believes that as a result a WA Senate Select Committee will review the body repair industry problems. "We understand the Senate will review the terms of reference when they meet early this year," said Simons.
NRMA has requested MTA-WA provide a list of issues and offer some solutions for change. However, it said the industry needs to be aware of the commercial realities when seeking solutions.
Peter Fitzpatrick, MTA-WA executive director, said SGIO had alienated repairers, and it was in its interests to work together with the repair industry to find a solution acceptable to all parties. "There are some very, very good businesses that have been taken off the [SGIO] Quality Repairer list and it's not for quality reasons. We need to address these and other issues," he said.
To complicate matters, Ray Frost, SGIO assessing manager, was the victim of a vicious beating in mid-January and the body repair industry has been squarely blamed by the Perth media. Fitzpatrick was approached by the police about the matter and was asked to explain the situation with regard to repairers' attitudes to SGIO.
Fitzpatrick, however, is fairly convinced that the assault was not related to the dispute with SGIO, and that the perpetrators were not from the crash repair industry. "The more I talked to the police, the less convinced they were that it was related to the panel beating industry. It could be related to the tow truck industry, but it's hard to pin down the cause," he said.
Alison Clarke, corporate affairs manager for SGIO, said the company was "deeply concerned for the safety of our staff member and outraged at this violent assault", but had not made any link between it and the crash repair industry. "The inferences made in that story [The West Australian, January 19, 2002] were the paper's, not ours," said Clarke.
SGIO's tender scheme commenced in the last quarter of last year and contracts run for an initial one year period. Clarke said it is in the interests of SGIO to make the scheme work. "When the tender system was first brought in, we fully briefed the MTA, and we hadn't heard of any concerns until we saw them in the press. We're very pleased that they [MTA-WA] are talking to us as it is in all our interests to make it work," said Clarke.
At the time of going to press, MTA-WA was due to meet SGIO/NRMA in late February or early March.