Experts are forecasting that insurer control of the collision repair industry will intensify. The common term for this process is disintermediation, the process whereby customers lose direct contact the business that provides the goods or services. When you buy produce at a Farmers market, for example, buyer and grower are in direct contact. When you purchase produce at a grocery store the grower becomes disintermediated from the buyer. Insurers will try very hard to impose tight controls over body shops. Whether or not insurers succeed in wresting power away, however, depends on whether or not shops surrender control.

Legislation signed by Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman restricts employer use of employee social security numbers. Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop, the bill's introducer, said LB 674 would help reduce identity theft. The bill prohibits employers from posting more than the last four digits of a Social Security number; requiring an employee to transmit more than the last four digits of his or her Social Security number over the Internet unless encrypted or over a secure connection; requiring the use of more than the last four digits of a Social Security number to access an Internet site; and using more than the last four digits of a Social Security number as an employee number. Violation of the Nebraska new law is a Class V misdemeanor.

The Nebraska Autobody Association released the top fiver insurers as selected by collision repair shops for the 2006 calendar year. The top five insurers for 2006 are: (1) State Farm; (2) Farmers Mutual; (3) Union Insurance; (4) Columbia National; and (5) AAA.

"This industry is about to choke and expire," body shop owner Sean Butler said in recent testimony. Boston Now quoted Butler: "We're here to ask this house to save a dying patient." Massachusetts's repairers are backing Alliance of Automotive Service Providers efforts to establish a Labor Rate Commission that would validate rates insurers must pay. AASP hired a top lobbying firm to help make its case. Labor rates, according to AASP, were $30 per hour in 1988 and increased to just $34 per hour in 2007, a timid 13 percent change in nine years while the cost of living for the same period jumped 46 percent. In other labor rate news, the newly formed National Collision Industry Alliance is exploring the labor rate issue as it relates to individual state laws. "Reimbursements are part of state insurance regulations," said NCIA founder Norbert Zaenglein, "that may provide a legitimate basis for ongoing validation of labor rates and other insurance claims settlement practices to ensure and verify that reimbursements are in compliance within state pricing laws, rules and regulations."

Airbags are migrating to unusual places and multiplying, according to an article in the Detroit News. Airbags will be placed beneath the dashboard, in back seats, under seat cushions and even on seat belts. The distinction of having the most airbags in a vehicle goes to the 2008 Toyota Lexus, which will have a total of ten airbags. Analysts predict that the numbers of inflatable restraint systems will increase to an average of eight to ten per vehicle.

Legislation passed in Minnesota would prohibit insurers from adjusting shop estimates without conducting a physical inspection. The law becomes effective August 2007. Specifically, the statute reads: "No adjuster or insurer, director, officer, broker, agent, attorney-in-fact, employee, or other representative of an insurer shall in collision cases: "adjust a damage appraisal of a repair shop when the extent of damage is in dispute without conducting a physical inspection of the vehicle; or specify the use of a particular vendor for the procurement of parts or other materials necessary for the satisfactory repair of the vehicle."

Questionable insurance company claims settlement practices continue to make headlines. A flood of trials for mishandling Katrina claims is scheduled for this summer in Mississippi. In the meantime legislators are struggling to find solution to prevent future claims settlement catastrophes. The aftermath of Katrina has also impacted homeowner insurance rates some of which, according to Mississippi's Sun Herald, are approaching the cost mortgage payments. Meanwhile weather forecasters are predicting a wave of hurricanes this year. Colorado State University predicts seventeen named storms nineteen of which are expected to be hurricanes.

North Dakota State Rep. George Keiser, last month, asked his state attorney general if the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) can conduct meetings that are closed to the public. The issue at hand is whether or not open record laws are violated when the Insurance Commissioner partakes in closed executive sessions. Keiser asked, "Can the state of North Dakota…participate in policy and regulatory discussions if said discussions are off-limits to the public?" Keiser said he would introduce a bill to rectify the issue. But NCOIL has also come under criticism for being too cozy with the insurance industry. Criticism stems from NCOIL's mission of drafting model legislation and helping legislators regulate the insurance industry. A study released by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) in 2003 reported that at least 40 percent of NCOIL's leadership had ties to the insurance industry. According to the CFA, NCOIL "has taken a series of recent positions on high-profile insurance issues that are favorable, if not identical, to insurance interests and have frequently undermined consumer protection."