Sounding Off: Repairers Rally for Fair Labor Rates
by Alana Quartuccio
Auto body shop owners in Massachusetts have been waiting a very long time to have a say in the decades-long debate over what a fair and reasonable labor reimbursement rate should look like in the Commonwealth.
Plagued with the lowest labor rate in the country – only hovering at about $44 with barely any increase since 1988 when it was $30 – Massachusetts collision repairers didn’t hesitate to close up their shops to make the trek to Boston on June 12 to finally have a chance to be heard by the Auto Body Labor Rate Advisory Board (ABLRAB), which was created to meet, study and review labor reimbursement rates to make recommendations to the Division of Insurance (DOI).
After waiting years to have a seat at the table, the AASP/MA community-at-large came to the Capitol to unleash their frustrations and challenges associated with trying to keep their businesses – and the industry – alive on a labor rate that has been so largely stomped on by the insurance industry that one can practically see the wear and tear on their shoes!
The ABLRAB public hearing was the first – and only – opportunity for the general auto body community to come forth to testify in front of the Board to study and make recommendations for a labor rate that fairly reimburses consumers and actually allows for safe and proper repairs.
Body shop owner after body shop owner, along with technicians and even one very wise young recently graduated vocational school student, came forth to drive home the point that this is a matter of life and death for the future of collision repair.
Before testimony officially began, members of the Board – which includes three collision repair professional representatives appointed by AASP/MA, insurance industry representatives and others on behalf of consumers, economists and others – offered opening remarks.
“We have spent a lot of time away from our shops on this issue,” stated Rick Starbard (Rick’s Auto Collision; Revere), who serves on the Board on behalf of AASP/MA. “We know the labor rate has been increasingly low since 1988 when insurance reform took effect. Since that time, year after year, we have tried bill after bill to seek relief. I served on a commission in 2008 where findings were to direct legislators to take action if the rate didn’t move within a year of the easement of cost containment. Those rates didn’t move. Another commission formed a couple of years later; again, nothing happened. Here we are, 17 years after the first commission. Hopefully, we get resolution to this problem while we still have an industry.”
Upon taking the microphone, Board member Christopher Stark (Massachusetts Insurance Federation) instantly made jaws drop with remarks that he’d later be called out for by one shop owner and other witnesses who slammed back at him for trying to alter the focus of the true issue at hand, even though Stark’s steering move was perhaps not out of character as a representative from the insurance industry.
Stark claimed, “Contrary to what you’ll hear, Massachusetts is not even the lowest cost repair state [nationwide], or even in New England, and we definitely do not have the lowest labor cost for repairs, which illustrates that the difference of experience in Massachusetts statutory and regulatory scope over the last 40 years required insurers to think beyond the labor rate calculations to ensure our auto body industry remains fairly compensated.”
He tried to convince an audience of auto body professionals – who deal with insurance representatives refusing to negotiate in most cases – that “today’s repair industry is already well positioned to negotiate fair rates directly with insurers based on market supply, demand and business sophistication” and implied that one legislatively-mandated rate would be “anti-competitive,” insisting a one-size-fits-all rate would not work for shops that don’t perform high-quality work and that repair mandates and adjudicated pricing mechanisms in Rhode Island are “increasing repair disputes, delayed claim resolutions and value friction between insurers and repairers.”
Stark ignited sparks by closing with: “I know we are going to hear about insurance rates a lot today, so I just want to be clear on the data from the outset that the premium increases as recorded from the National Association of Insurance Commission, or $820 in 1989 and $1,251 in average Hawaiian premium in 2022 that is the last available year that we have [recorded]. This shows how hard insurers have worked to keep long term rates below CPI increases. By those numbers, we have already achieved parity from the $30 labor rate in 1989.”
In the state of Massachusetts, one can get their bike fixed for $118.33 on average or a small engine fixed for an average of $109 per hour, “but the insurance industry expects us to fix cars for $40 or $50 an hour,” Gary Cloutier (Cloot’s Auto Body; Westfield) illustrated to the Board. “Right over the border in Connecticut, which is 15 miles away from me, the exact same companies that write policies in both states are paying Connecticut shops $20 to $30 more per hour, and they’re not fixing cars any different in Enfield [Connecticut] than they are in Westfield or Springfield or anywhere else in Massachusetts.”
An electrician can get their license and initial equipment and are set up for life unless they need to replace something that breaks, “but the equipment that we have to maintain and constantly update is way more than any electrician or plumber will ever have. Electricity never changes; it’s the same from California to Cape Cod. Plumbers – clean water in, dirty water out. It’s not that hard. I have to be a body man, a frame man, [deal with] suspension, electronics, air bags. The list is five miles long. I wear a lot of hats and you’re expecting me to do all this for next to nothing?
“No one is going into this trade anymore because there is no money in it,” Cloutier added, because “insurance companies have squeezed and squeezed to the point where people are dropping like flies and shops are closing left and right. Yet, all the people at the top of the insurance industry are paying themselves real nice wages, aren’t they? In 1999, Sanford Wheel, CEO of Travelers Group, made $400 million, with a $50 million stock option, and in 2000, he made $537 million – that was 25 years ago! But you expect all of us to live on crumbs!?” He says being told “we’re paying you enough but we’re paying people in Connecticut more” can not continue.
“Would you be willing to take your vehicle to a body shop that didn’t have any training, that couldn’t provide ADAS research or didn’t have the proper equipment?” Jeff White (North Andover Auto Body; North Andover) queried. “At the end of the day, it’s not really about the body shops. This is about the consumer and the safety of the consumer. If we don’t get paid properly to repair these vehicles, it’s eventually going to result in loss of life or all kinds of problems that none of us really want to happen. We’re all here to do the right thing by the consumer, and I think we have to work together to do it.”
JR Force (Repairs Unlimited; Georgetown), whose shop is only seven-and-a-half miles from the New Hampshire border where he believes the rate is about $55 to $60 per hour, expressed his dismay over the discrepancy. “We’re all repairing the same cars, and we’re all buying from the same suppliers; yet, we have to accept a lower rate.”
AASP/MA Lobbyist Guy Glodis spoke to the Board as a former legislator and former chair of insurance, a position he served in 2003 and 2004 when the biggest issue at that time was “the same issue that we’re talking about today, about how grossly underpaid the auto body technicians are in Massachusetts! I can go to a bicycle shop and pay $60 or $70 an hour to fix my bike, and the fact that the insurance industry only wants to give, on average, $44 is incredulous!”
Glodis challenged Stark for his earlier comments. “We can get into arguments, Mr. Stark, about whether or not we’re the lowest paid in the country or the second lowest paid,” directing his next challenge to Board Chairman Michael Powers as he professed,“We’re very, very low paid, and the price to do business in Massachusetts is almost triple what it is in most states, second only to Hawaii. It’s more expensive to operate a business in Massachusetts than it is in California. If insurance reform was done by the general court and we kept up with a consumer price index, the people sitting behind me would be getting paid in the triple digits.”
The room exploded into applause when Glodis lashed out, “And one thing that is insulting to me, Mr. Chairman, is when I hear the insurance industry say they can’t afford it and they’re fighting for the consumers. What a bunch of BS that is when they had the most record profitability during COVID. This is well documented, including what Massachusetts insurance carriers did. Did these guys get a little bit of a bump? None!”
He challenged the insurance industry’s cries of “We can’t afford it” asking, “Well, when can you afford it? These people deserve a good pay for a good day’s work, and it’s not just about consumer protection. It’s about public safety. The shops are responsible, not the insurance companies. When somebody gets into an accident because of shoddy work, it’s because the greedy insurance people don’t want to pay them what they deserve to be paid!” Glodis begged them to do the right thing and give them a significant increase – “not a little dollar here and there, how insulting! Bring them up to what they should be paid, compared to the region, and compared to the trade, and compared to all of the mandates that they have to do with training and technical equipment. They’re just asking for good, fair pay to keep their industry alive and to do the right thing by the consumers.”
John Buccheri (North Shore Auto Body; Danvers) called the current reimbursement rate situation “increasingly unsustainable,” and he lamented, it’s “driving away our future workforce,” adding that his shop just hired one of the last auto body program graduates from Essex North Shore Agriculture and Technical School as the program is shutting down after 2026.
Instead of looking toward a future of promise, collision repair students are instead faced with watching careers die before even having a chance to get started.
“Last year, we found out the collision repair program would close after the class of 2026 due to the high cost of operation and the lack of interest,” Alicia Soltys of North Shore Auto Body stated. This also meant her beloved instructor and mentor who encouraged her and helped her “venture into what is predominantly a male-dominated field” was let go from the school and “would not be asked back to teach his final graduating class of 2026. After over 4,500 students passed through his doors, he will not be able to see his last class of only six out into the world.”
“I come before you, not just as a technician myself, but as someone who has built a life in this industry, who has mentored young technicians and who has watched the trade suffer not from a lack of passion or skill, but from a system that refuses to value the work that we do,” shared McColl Rhodes (Nesco Sales; Bondsville). She’s continuously watching young technicians leave the profession including “a post-secondary technical school student who quit to bartend for the money. Please let that sink in. We lost a future technician to a bar stool because it pays more.”
AASP/MA Vice President Douglas Begin (Vendetti Motors; Franklin) urged, “Massachusetts must take action to correct this injustice. Artificially low reimbursable rates fall on the very people who serve our customers. They expect and deserve proper repairs to restore their vehicle safely. But when insurance carriers fail to reimburse at fair rates, we are left with no choice but to either resolve the loss or pass the cost onto the vehicle owner. This situation is fundamentally unfair and undermines consumer trust.”
Retired body shop owner and devoted labor rate advocate, Jack Lamborghini, wasted no time addressing Stark’s opening comments. Testifying virtually, Lamborghini stated, “First of all, Mr. Stark, what a wonderful opening statement you made today. You are the epitome of ‘figures lie and liars figure.’ You have shown that you can confuse an issue to the max. I hope nobody there allows Mr. Stark to confuse the issue. Our labor rate is low – too low, way too low. I also find it interesting that there are no rank and file members of the insurance industry here to testify. I would dare the insurers up there to bring all of your appraisers in and let them testify one by one. But you’d have to put them under oath, because every one of them knows that the labor rate is ridiculously low and completely insufficient to sustain a collision repair business in today’s environment.
“I spent 48 years in the auto body industry and 46 of those fighting for a fair labor rate,” Lamborghini continued his plight. He believes members of the Board who represent the insurance side know how low the rate is but won’t admit it “because they’re all going to be protective of their jobs, their careers or the insurance companies. So, we can sit here and listen to absolute BS from Mr. Stark, and you can’t try to tell me that there is a difference between Massachusetts and Connecticut, New Hampshire or New York… the labor rate is the labor rate is the labor rate, and you suppressed it tremendously over the last 30-plus years.”
Sarah Mazzaferro (Custom Auto Body; East Longmeadow) cited the unfairness of higher labor rates in neighboring states while Massachusetts has a higher cost of living. “We are expected to survive on a rate frozen in time, dictated unilaterally by insurers. There is no real negotiation, no transparency, no accountability. Instead, we’re handed numbers based on internal surveys that use cherry picked DRP or contract shops willing to work for less, essentially saying that if one shop is willing to work for garbage, the rest of you should be grateful all you’re doing is starving.”
It’s killing small business, she continued, as it “directly cripples our ability to grow” keeping shops from being able to afford necessary equipment, offer competitive wages and invest in training for certifications.
The ABLRAB was expected to meet at the end of July to begin analysis of the body shop labor rate survey results which was conducted in June and July. To view the full June 12 public hearing, visit bit.ly/ABLRABhearing061225.
Want more? Check out the August 2025 issue of New England Automotive Report!