A bill pending in the Florida Senate introduced with the noble intention of catching hit-and-run drivers could also cause less desirable outcomes.

The Florida Auto Body Association has concerns about how Florida SB 92 might negatively affect repair shop operations and cause concerns with customer privacy. The bill would require body shops to get a crash report from the customer if the damage would cost more than $2,500 to repair. If the body shop does not get a crash report, they must file the repair estimate. If a body shop is found in violation of the bill, the state could revoke its license.

Drew Bryant, owner of DB Orlando Collision (and FenderBender columnist), and Ementi Coary, executive director of FABA, stressed that the $2,500 limit will apply to almost every repair job in a collision repair shop.

“A minor bumper job is $2,500 now,” Coary said. “If a customer wants to pay for something out of pocket in the state of Florida because their insurance [premium] will go through the roof, now we have an issue where a customer can’t do a minor repair to their bumper without being put into a database that will probably be sold to a third-party database, which violates consumer rights as well.”

According to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, a crash report might take up to 10 days to become available and cost $12. If the shop doesn’t receive the crash report from the customer, they must submit their estimate for the repairs to a new database overseen by the Department of Law Enforcement.

Bryant has concerns about how long it takes to get crash reports and the costs a shop will incur while storing the vehicle during the process. The bill also doesn’t specify how long body shops would need to keep the crash reports on file.

“In my experience when customers try to get the crash report, there’s always a ridiculous delay in trying to acquire them,” he said. “It can take up to three weeks or longer for a crash report to be done.”

Bryant also expressed concerns with who is liable if he provides an estimate and the customer chooses to go with another repair shop or repair it themselves.

“If they got an estimate from me or my team and they decide to fix it by themselves and its improperly repaired, residually, something takes place," he said. "If I submitted an estimate for that, now I’ve got to prove I didn’t fix it?”

The bill would increase the administrative duties for body shops, as currently they do not have to file a crash report or a repair estimate with the state. Bryant’s administrative team grew from two to three people a decade ago to 15 today to handle all the current administrative requirements shops must handle. Not all shops have the same administrative capabilities to handle additional duties.

“Although I was able to upgrade all those administrators, other guys are drowning in paperwork,” he said.

Coary is concerned that the bill will lead to an increase of shops putting out estimates just under the $2,500 limit to avoid it.

“Now people are going to write an estimate for $2,450,” he said. “It’s just the wrong bill. All you’re doing is asking for things to be fudged all day long.”

Coary also expressed concerns with what happens with information in the database. Customer data might be sold to third parties. For example, if a customer went a body shop and didn’t file an insurance claim, it's possible the insurance company could procure that information from the database where the shop filed the estimate.

“There's a very good possibility [that happens]. Data is sold left and right,” Coary said. “[There is] an estimating platform that sells data to third parties. There’s a good chance they could go ‘Alright, we can go in there and start purchasing this data and see who’s bypassing going to the insurance company.’

“None of us are anti-insurance companies. We just want to make sure everything is done on the up and up for our consumers and the industry.”

Sen. Joe Gruters (R-Sarasota) sponsored the bill following the tragic death of Lilly Glaubach, a 13-year-old who was killed in a hit-and-run in Sarasota in August 2022. The perpetrator took the car to an auto body shop and told them a tree fell on his car. Bryant and Coary stressed their opposition to the bill is not because of the events that inspired it.

“The last thing we want to do publicly as an association is to not have empathy for why this was brought up,” Bryant said. “It was in response to something that was tragic, but every time you dig deeper, [the bill] just becomes irrational.”

Coary said FABA is open to working with legislators to come up with a more reasonable law that would help protect consumers and body shops while addressing hit-and-run incidents.

“We want to be able to help educate these legislators on safer, proper repairs but also at the same time not hurting the consumer or the ability for the shops to get the job done,” he said.

To his knowledge, no other state has a similar law on the books or in the works.

"I sit on the Society of Collision Repair Specialists that oversees the affiliates, and they haven’t heard of anybody that has this law in motion," he said.

The bill is currently with the Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government. It could be up for vote on the Senate floor within the next couple weeks.

FABA encourages every body shop owner, manager, and employee to contact Spencer White, legislative aide for Senator Gruters, at (850) 487-5022 to request the removal of body shops from the bill. A post on Facebook said they should tell White, "body shops are repair facilities, NOT investigators. We do not have the authority or expertise to police incidents. This bill places unnecessary liability and risk on our industry."