Portsmouth Auto Shop Files 'Price Fixing' Complaint

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - A local auto body shop is facing off against the New Hampshire Insurance Dept. over what it calls “price fixing." According to Seacoast Online, the owners of Ben's Auto Body, hired Portsmouth attorney and New Castle prosecutor Jay Nadeau to file a May 18 complaint with the Insurance Department.

A fourth-generation member of the Berounsky family to run Ben’s, Mike Berounsky has been advocating for the state to study prevailing rates for auto body businesses and provide the results to insurance companies. It’s needed, he told the Portsmouth Herald last month, because insurance companies are low-balling rates that affiliated auto body shops charge, while steering consumers to shops that agree to work for the lower rates. Those shops get a promise of more customers directed their way by insurers and some cut corners to make up the difference, he claims.

Ben’s $75-an-hour rate is “on the lower end of the local repair shops frame labor rate that ranges between $65 per hour and $120 an hour,” Nadeau’s complaint claims. By not honoring Ben’s rate, Nadeau writes, the insurer and other insurance companies “are intentionally, wrongfully and illegally steering customers away not only from Ben’s Auto Body, but all other independent automobile body repair shops, directing consumers to automobile body repair shops that work directly for (insurance companies) at the lowest possible rate.”

To read the full story, visit Seacoast Online.

Courtesy Photo / Ben's Auto Body