Agents, brokers fined in kickbacks
State insurance regulators have fined 43 insurance agents and brokers across Western and Central New York for accepting kickbacks, or not supervising staff who accepted them, in exchange for steering customers to certain auto glass repair shops.
The agents and brokers, who work at more than two dozen insurance agencies, were accused of accepting department or grocery store gift cards in return for referring auto insurance customers with repair claims to Bison Glass or Pat’s Glass. The cards ranged in value from $35 to $60, and some payments added up to more than $1,000.
The agents and brokers were fined a total of $42,650, with individual fines ranging from $250 to $5,000. Two agents, John B. Conaway and Debra A. Dillenburg, were ordered to pay the highest fines at $5,000 each, while another agent, Kurt J. Silvestro, paid $4,000.
Conaway is employed by MetLife Auto & Home in Williamsville, Dillenburg works for the David G. Glenn Agency in Dunkirk, and Silvestro owns his own agency in Williamsville. Bison Glass operates throughout Western New York, while Pat’s Glass worked in Wyoming County.
State law bars agents and brokers from taking payments to steer business to specific auto repair shops, but it is not illegal for the shops to offer incentives to attract business.
“We don’t regulate glass shops,” said Insurance Department spokesman Ron Klug. “There’s nothing in the law prohibiting a business from offering incentives to people. What was against the law was that licensed insurance agents and brokers accepted the incentives.”
The fines were assessed over the past few months but only announced en masse Thursday.
Auto body and glass repair shop owners have been complaining for years about insurance agents and brokers “steering” business to particular shops, in violation of state law that allows a consumer to choose any shop and have the work covered by insurers. But receiving actual kickbacks appears to represent an extra level of violation.
Bison Glass owner Ralph Galluzzi said the practice has been going on since the early 1980s but became widespread enough that a company didn’t get business if it didn’t pay up. Agents even dictated to the shops what kind of payments they wanted, and for what stores.
“There was a time where we were all involved,” he said. “It got to the point where the insurance agents were holding us ransom and wouldn’t give us any referrals unless we gave them a kickback. It became a competition for what glass company would pay the most.”
The state investigation started when Galluzzi contacted regulators in 2006 and said his company had stopped the practice because it could no longer afford to make the payments. Pat’s also provided information after it went out of business.
“I’m glad that it’s done,” Galluzzi said. “It’s wrong. We all did it. It was the cost of doing business, until I decided that that cost of doing business was costing me more than I was making in profit.”
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