Good Sense on Compliance Issues

In November, dealers gathered in Austin, Texas, for one of the regional Dealer Compliance Summit meetings being held around the United States. Sponsored by four of the magazines that cover our industry — Agent Entrepreneur, F&I and Showroom, Auto Dealer Today and Auto Dealer Compliance — the goal of these summits is to help dealers make sense of the all the regulatory demands they are facing, and learn how they can ensure they comply with local and federal laws to minimize their risk.

At RoadVantage, these themes hit home. One of the points the speakers at the Summit made several times throughout the event was the need for dealers to offer contracts that are easy to understand, with exclusions that are very clearly stated in such a way as to ensure there is no confusion on exactly what the customer is buying.

We have been living that philosophy from the start, with our True Coverage approach to F&I products. We went out of our way to streamline our contracts and remove as many exclusions as we could, so every agent, dealer and consumer knows, up front, exactly what the coverage provides. We make an effort to have the most consumer-friendly contracts in the market, because we believe it benefits everyone in the chain. It doesn’t surprise us that this approach is the one experts in regulatory law and practice are now advocating, because there are no downsides to making sure everyone knows exactly what they’re getting.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been a major talking point for the entire automotive industry for some years now, but even with the recent report from the U.S. House of Representatives denouncing the CFPB’s crackdown on auto lending, it is unlikely their influence will diminish any time soon. Speakers like Aaron E. Lunt, the assistant general counsel and head of regulatory affairs for The Warranty Group, and Randy Henrick, the associate general counsel at Dealertrack Technologies, have been closely following the CFPB, and both pointed out that dealers who take steps to ensure they are transparent in how their products and contracts are structured and sold will fare better in the long term. To date, the CFPB has focused more on the finance companies who serve automotive dealerships, rather than the dealers themselves – but it is only a matter of time, according to most experts.

We at RoadVantage believe the future of our industry is firmly rooted in proven products that bring real peace of mind to consumers, sold with contracts that are fair, open and transparent, and what few exclusions that exist are clearly explained. We are proud to be the first to adopt this approach, and we will continue to work hard to make sure our products and contracts don’t just meet dealer expectations, but exceed them on every conceivable level.