by Kathy Bimber
Can you believe that the year 2018 is almost over? The next few weeks will be filled with holiday parties, end-of-the-year meetings and report filings, and time with family and friends. They will go by quickly as they always do. And then, it will be 2019!
There are many new things coming for AGSC in 2019. First, Registered Member Companies will now be able to say that, not only are they an AGSC Registered Member Company, but that their technicians are AGSC-certified as well, providing a more unified message and an added level of professionalism for consumers.
If you are an AGSC Registered Member Company and all of your technicians are not AGSC Certified (have not taken and passed the AGSC Technician Certification test), there is still time to get your technicians certified but you do need to hurry to get it done. Your technicians can register to take the test at https://agsc.org/certification_registration_form.php or you may contact Vinny LaMarco at vlamarco@agsc.org or 540-602-3252. Please note that our office will be closed December 21 – January 2. Companies that are not compliant with this requirement by the December 31, 2018 deadline may have their AGSC Registration suspended.
Second, the AGSC 2019 Member Directory will be available soon. It is currently at the printers, and we are excited to be able to make it available to you shortly. The directory contains helpful AGSC information as well as lists of AGSC Registered Member Companies, AGSC Associate Members and AGSC Registered Training Programs. It is a great resource to give to all of your insurance agents.
Third, AGSC is offering more insurers’ CEU forums and technician certification training and testing events. We encourage you to let your insurance agents know about the CEU forums as they are great ways for insurance agents to learn about the importance of safe auto glass installations, AGSC Registered Member Companies and why recommending AGSC Registered Member Companies to their policyholders is important. These forums are free to insurance agents. We also encourage you to send your technicians to the certification training and testing events. These are great ways to get any newly hired technicians certified as well as assisting your already certified technicians with re-certification. These certification training and testing events are free for technicians who are employed by AGSC Registered Member Companies. For information on insurers’ CEU forums or technician certification training events being offered in 2019, visit www.agsc.org. The most recent events will be listed on the home page and more future events can be found at https://agsc.org/events/.
Finally, the 2019 audits will begin. In an effort to assist our Registered Member Companies with becoming compliant to ANSI/AGSC/AGRSS™ 004-2018, the AGSC Board has agreed to allow Registered Member Companies selected for the audit to be audited to ANSI/AGSC/AGRSS 003-2015. However, the auditors will point out the new requirements of the AGRSS Standard and let companies know whether or not they are currently compliant with these requirements. If they are not, this will not count against them in the audit, but it will let them know what changes they will immediately need to make so that they are compliant with ANSI/AGSC/AGRSS 004-2018.
To assist all of our Registered Member Companies with assessing their compliance to ANSI/AGSC/AGRSS 004-2018, AGSC will be revising the Attachment B – Declaration of Standard Conformance document to include the new requirements of ANSI/AGSC/AGRSS 004-2018. All of our companies will be expected to complete this new Attachment B document verifying that they understand the new requirements of the AGRSS Standard and are compliant with these requirements. Be sure to look for this mailing in the next couple of months. Thank you in advance for your timely response in returning the completed document to us.
As always, thank you for being an AGSC Registered Member Company and have a wonderful holiday season!