Insurance Billing for Auto Glass

Most windshield work is paid by an insurance company, through a claims administrator such as Safelite, LYNX or HSG. The administrator reads your claim, compares it to the policy and their network rules, and then pays or doesn't. Getting paid is not the same as being done with the job: a claim can come back rejected over one wrong digit, or paid $11 short for a moulding the insurer decided you didn't need.

The Insurance billing page is where that part of the business lives. Claims are reviewed and sent from here. It shows what each insurer decided, what they still owe you and for how long, and it matches their bank deposits to the right claims. It also has the inbox where new referrals arrive.

This article is for whoever handles insurance paperwork. In a small shop that's often the owner, in a bigger one the office manager or a dedicated billing person.

How it fits together

Four things are involved, and keeping them apart makes everything else easier:

1. The job. The work itself: vehicle, estimate, install. See Running an auto glass job from start to finish.
2. Two invoices, both in the customer's name. A deductible invoice the customer pays you directly (if there is a deductible), and an insurance invoice for everything else.
3. The claim. Your request to the insurer to pay the insurance invoice. Suprata sends it electronically to the administrator, and the answer comes back the same way.
4. The deposit. Insurers pay by bank transfer or check, often one payment covering several claims. You match that deposit to the claims it pays.

You don't connect anything yourself. The electronic link to the claims administrators runs through the AutoGlass Upstream Provider, and it is set up and looked after by Suprata support: the sign-in, which of your locations bills the work, who on your team handles claims, and how your insurers pay you. If insurance billing isn't turned on for your shop yet, contact Suprata support to turn it on. Until then you can still send a claim the administrator's own way and mark it sent (see below).

Why is the insurance invoice in the customer's name? Because if the insurer won't pay, the customer owes it. While the claim is open, that invoice stays pending. Pending means no reminders, no late fees, and nothing on the customer's statement or in their portal. The customer only sees it if you decide the balance is theirs.

What each status means

Every claim shows one plain status. Here's what each one means for you:

Reviewing and sending a claim

The claim starts at approval, not at the install. As soon as the customer approves the estimate, Suprata checks the claim: the VIN is 17 characters, the date of loss is present and not in the future, the claim or referral number is there, and the insurer's own required fields are filled in. The claim is also run past the AutoGlass Upstream Provider's own checks, so you see the administrator's complaints too, before anything is actually sent. Fix those at approval: a missing policy number is a two-minute phone call on day one and a week of back-and-forth after the install.

After the install, the claim moves to Ready to review. Open it and you'll see:

• Ready to send? Anything still wrong, in plain words. Each item has a Fix button that jumps straight to the field that needs it.
• Claim details and Vehicle. These are the job's own claim and vehicle records, so correcting a claim number here corrects it on the job too.
• What the insurer is billed. Every line exactly as the insurer will see it, with the tax, less the deductible, and the total they should pay. Underneath is what stays with the customer: the deductible, and anything marked customer pays.

Then press Approve to send. We recommend leaving automatic sending on (a setting in Auto Glass settings): an approved claim goes out within a minute, so nobody has to remember a second click. Send now sends straight away, approving the claim first if needed. If the AutoGlass Upstream Provider is briefly unreachable, the claim waits and tries again on its own. You don't need to press anything twice.

Administrators that don't take electronic claims. A few insurers still want email, fax or their own website. Send the claim their way, then choose Mark as sent another way, with the reference number they gave you. That claim won't update by itself. When the insurer answers, record it with Record the insurer's answer.

When a claim is rejected

The rejection reason appears at the top of the claim, in the administrator's words. Common ones:

• "VIN does not match insurance records": usually a typo, or the policy covers a different vehicle.
• "The dispatch number is not assigned to the billing shop": the referral number is wrong or missing. LYNX needs its 9-digit dispatch number.
• "Date of loss is after date of service" or "Install date is before the date of loss": a date entered in the wrong format or the wrong box.
• "No coverage for this loss": the customer's policy doesn't cover glass.

For most rejections the answer is fix and send again. Correct the field, the claim is checked again, then approve it and it goes back to the administrator. Only give up on a claim when there's genuinely no coverage. Then choose between Bill the customer and Write off (see below).

When the insurer pays less: short pays

A short pay shows up the moment the insurer accepts: the claim says what they'll pay and how much less that is than you billed. If they refused particular lines, those lines are listed, and they're also marked on the job's estimate.

Example: you billed $824.18. Safelite accepted $812.50 and refused the $11.68 moulding with "Molding not required per NAGS - not payable."

You have three choices:

• Fix and send again. Use this when you can back the line up: the car really needed that moulding, or the calibration was required by the manufacturer. Add a note to the claim so whoever follows up knows why.
• Write off. Use this when the insurer is applying rates you agreed to, for example your network agreement caps kits or labor. That's the deal you signed, and it isn't the customer's fault.
• Bill the customer. Use this for things the customer chose that insurance doesn't cover, like an upgrade. Better still, mark those lines customer pays on the estimate before the claim goes out, so the customer pays at the install and there's nothing to chase later.

Write off, or bill the customer?

Both settle the difference, but they do very different things to your customer:

• Write off adds a negative Insurance adjustment line to the insurance invoice for the amount you're not collecting. The invoice then balances, and the customer is never charged. Use this whenever the shortfall is between you and the insurer.
• Bill the customer turns the insurance invoice into the customer's bill for whatever the insurer didn't pay. It's locked in their name and then behaves like any other invoice: on their statement, in their portal, in reminders and late fees. Call the customer first. Nobody should learn about an insurance shortfall from a late-fee notice.

Don't do either of these by editing the invoice by hand. The claim keeps its own record of what was written off and what moved to the customer. A hand-edited invoice disagrees with it, and the receivables numbers stop making sense.

Deposits: matching insurer payments to claims

When does an insurance claim count as paid? You choose in Auto Glass settings:

• When the insurer accepts it (recommended for most shops). The accepted amount goes onto the insurance invoice straight away, marked accepted, waiting for the deposit. The job can close instead of sitting open for weeks. Your cash and revenue reports still don't count it until the deposit is matched.
• Only once the money is matched to a bank deposit. Stricter: nothing is recorded until you match the deposit. Choose this if your bookkeeper wants invoices to show only money that's actually in the bank.

Either way, matching deposits is the step that finishes a claim, and the Reconcile tab is where you do it.

Transfers the insurers told us about. When an administrator pays, the payment is reported back to Suprata with its reference number. Reconcile groups those into suggestions, like "EFT165830674 - $2,431.90 - 3 claims". Press Match this deposit and the deposit is set up with those claims already filled in. Check the date and amount against your bank statement, then press Finish.

Checks and anything else. Press New deposit, enter the date, the amount on the bank statement and the check number, then add the claims it pays. You can search by claim number, customer, job, invoice or reference.

It has to add up to the cent. Finish stays disabled until the claims on the deposit add up to the deposit amount exactly. If they don't, something is wrong: the insurer paid a claim you haven't added, or paid a different amount than it accepted. Change the amount on that claim to what was actually paid, and the remainder shows as still owed.

Finishing records the money on each insurance invoice, closes the invoices that are fully paid, and marks the claims finished. It can't be undone, so check against the bank statement first.

Receivables: what insurers owe you

The Receivables tab shows what each administrator and each insurance company owes you, split by how long ago the claim was sent: 0-30, 31-60, 61-90 and over 90 days. Click any figure to see the claims behind it.

A healthy glass shop gets paid in two to three weeks. Anything past 30 days deserves a call. Have the claim number and the insurer's reference ready; both are on the claim. Anything past 60 days usually has a problem nobody told you about.

The referral inbox

Safelite, LYNX and HSG send you work as referrals (LYNX calls them assignments). They arrive in the Referrals tab, one card each: the insured, the vehicle, the claim and policy, the damage and the part they expect, whether a camera calibration is needed, the requested appointment, and the service location.

To take one:

1. Choose the customer. If they're already in Suprata, the card suggests likely matches (same phone, same email, same name). Otherwise search for them, or create a new customer from the details on the card with one click.
2. Press Turn into a job. You get an Auto Glass job with the vehicle and claim already filled in and insurance set as the payer. The requested appointment and special instructions are added as a note on the job. When the claim goes out later, it goes back on the same referral, the way the administrator expects.

If a job already has the same claim number, the card says so. Link the referral to that job rather than starting a second one.

Declining a referral happens with the administrator. There's no button that tells Safelite or LYNX you've passed. Tell them the way you normally would, then Dismiss the card with a reason so the rest of your team knows. A dismissed referral can be brought back from Recently handled.

Keeping an eye on updates

The button at the top right of the page shows how long ago the latest news arrived about your claims ("Updated 4 min ago"): acceptances, rejections, payments and new referrals. Answers usually show up within minutes of the administrator making them. Press it to open the Connection tab, where Check for updates now fetches the latest straight away instead of waiting.

If updates stop, call us rather than troubleshooting. The link to the administrators is set up and maintained by Suprata support, so there's nothing on your side to reconnect or re-enter. If the page hasn't updated for a few hours on a working day, or a claim check says something about your shop's setup rather than about the claim itself, contact Suprata support.

Common mistakes

• Looking at the claim only after the install. The check runs at approval for a reason. A missing policy number or an unreadable date of loss is far easier to fix while the customer is on the phone than after they've driven away.
• Recording the insurer's check as an ordinary payment on the invoice. Then, when you match the deposit, the money is counted twice. Insurer money always goes through Reconcile.
• Editing prices on the invoice to make a short pay disappear. Use Write off. It leaves a clear record, the claim and the invoice agree, and your receivables stay right.
• Billing the customer for a rejection you could have fixed. Most rejections are a typo or a wrong number. Try fix and send again first; a customer who is billed and then refunded is an unhappy customer.
• Leaving accepted claims unmatched. Accepted, waiting for the deposit is a promise, not money. If deposits aren't matched every week, a missing payment can hide there for months.
• Dismissing a referral without telling the administrator. They'll keep waiting for you, and the customer will too.
• Not telling support when someone new starts handling claims. Every claim has to name the person who handled it, and Suprata support sets your claims staff up with the AutoGlass Upstream Provider when it turns billing on. Someone who starts later isn't matched until you let us know, so tell support before their first claim goes out.

Who can do what

Reviewing, sending, writing off, billing the customer, matching deposits and handling referrals need the Manage Insurance Billing permission. Nobody has it until an administrator grants it. People who use the Auto Glass screens without that permission can open the Insurance billing page and see where each claim stands, and refresh a claim's status. They can't change anything.

Related articles

• Running an auto glass job from start to finish
• Setting up Suprata for an auto glass shop
• Reading the Auto Glass Performance dashboard
• Billing accounts: fleets and other payers
• The accounting dashboard