What I’ve Learned About Windshield Replacement (So Far)
Go to a place that specializes in replacing windshields. I picked Apple Autoglass, but there’s also Speedy and probably others. I haven’t even gotten the windshield replaced yet, so I’m sort of trusting that they’ve got that covered, but based on the five minutes I spent in their store today (compared to the hours I spent trying to get it done at our dealership), I’m convinced it’s the way to go.
We initially went to the dealership hoping that our only-a-week-old windshield would be covered by some sort of warranty. It wasn’t, but we were there and I didn’t see a reason to go find anywhere else to get the replacement done. As a result, I spent part of every day this week on the phone with my insurance broker and the dealership trying to sort things out.
Replacing an insured windshield is apparently supposed to go like this (from your perspective):
- You say “hey, I need my windshield replaced”
- The replacement people replace your windshield
- You pay the replacement people whatever your deductible is
- The replacement people put in a claim to your insurance company and get the rest of their money
As I’ve discovered, since the auto-glass people deal with insurance claims on a daily basis they’ve got things down to a science. When you wander in and mumble something about your insurance company only paying-out based on “NAGS” standard pricing – because that’s the extent of what you understood from your broker – they don’t bat an eye. They just ask for the name of your insurance company, call for pre-approval and everything is set to go.
On the other hand, an average dealership garage probably doesn’t deal with a whole lot of insurance claims (mine certainly doesn’t). They might know what “NAGS” is, but their price lists may not be up to date (my dealership’s weren’t), and they probably just generally don’t have as much experience handling all of the insurance things that you don’t want to bother dealing with yourself. I’ve been otherwise happy with their level of service, but they seemed (understandably, in retrospect) out of their element on this one.