May 9, 2013—Eddie Quintela, owner of Collision Concepts based in Delray Beach, Fla., has filed a lawsuit against Infinity Insurance Co. on behalf of a customer for short pays of “reasonable and necessary” repair costs.
Quintela’s corporate legal counsel Brent Geohagan claims that Infinity Insurance underpaid the shop $611 for the repair due to an arbitrary discount on parts, and failure to provide ample consideration for several necessary repair processes, related materials, labor rates and quality replacement parts.
“Our customer is angry. He’s upset that his insurer, which he trusted to be there in his time of need, is attempting to underpay for his repair and force him toward unauthorized discounts and to use inferior replacement parts. So as a courtesy to our client, we provided a proper and thorough repair using quality replacement parts with the understanding that we would seek recovery of his insurer’s underpayments on his behalf,” Quintela said. “I have had dozens of such lawsuits of which our customers have won every single one, and we have dozens more currently in process that I have no doubt we will win as well. I don’t expect any insurer to pay one penny more than is necessary to properly repair our customers’ vehicles, but I won’t allow insurers to pay one penny less than is necessary to do so either.”
