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May 26, 2009

Kicking the Tires

It’s a good idea to get into the habit of checking the vendor’s tariff before issuing a claim--and not just as a matter of dotting I’s and crossing T’s. The last thing you’d want to do is hamstring the negotiation process by shortchanging your own claim. It may be helpful to think of a potential dispute as a pending transaction at a used car lot: both sides want the car to sell, but the issue is on whose terms. Getting all the facts lined up before letting the salesman know how much you are willing to spend is simply prudent car shopping.

Perhaps a PIU audit shows that a company is not properly applying a default factor. Industry standard may say that 50% is the usual default. However, if the company’s own tariff provides a different default, perhaps even 75%, then the difference can amount to a sizable increase in the potential savings. If a rate benchmarking audit yields a company charging excessively, that’s a good start. Sometimes though, the vendor just isn’t even billing their own tariffed rate. Here again, taking the time to check the tariff and getting the dispute right in the first place is much easier than trying to negotiate a settlement while you are at the same time trying to increase the amount in dispute.

In an ideal world, there would be no need for this kind of scrutiny. In an ideal world, everyone would forthrightly share all of the various components that comprise inter-carrier billing. However, given the gap between the world we live in and that ideal, it always makes sense to leave no stone unturned during the dispute preparation stage. If you have to open the bidding on a used car, better make that initial offer in your best interest. Otherwise you are just bidding against yourself.

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