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Allstate stresses DRP background checks only apply to owners, managers, don’t involve drug, credit checks

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Business Practices | Education | Insurance
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Allstate stressed Thursday it only requests background checks on “Good Hands” DRP owners and managers — not employees — and the vetting by General Information Services doesn’t involve credit checks or drug testing.

Justin Herndon of Allstate’s media relations and issues management team wasn’t entirely sure of Allstate’s criteria beyond that drug or credit checks were definitely not involved, and he referred us to the company’s background check firm, GIS, to learn more. We left phone messages at GIS early Thursday afternoon; continue to check Repairer Driven News for updates.

But Herndon said the checks would likely be more along the lines of bankruptcy and criminal history. (Both are public record.) Plus, Allstate for practical purposes didn’t really learn what GIS specifically found about the owners and managers — it just received a score from the company.

Asked if a DRP shop could conversely background-check Allstate employees, Herndon noted June 24 that Allstate had more than 40,000 and said, “They’re not employees of the shop.”

A Southeastern U.S. DRP shop operations manager, whom we’ve agreed to keep anonymous, had informed us of the checks’ existence, writing that his company had been a Good Hands shop for a while, but past checks didn’t seem to be “as invasive.” Herndon on Thursday said Allstate hadn’t changed anything about the checks beyond which company was conducting them.

The operations manager wrote in an email that while “I don’t have anything to hide,” but he was concerned that employees would be drug-screened or credit checked.

Herndon said June 24 that Allstate did the checks for public safety.

“I can’t imagine the questions you’d be asking if (Allstate) didn’t do any of them,” he said then.

Herndon didn’t know if such checks were common among Allstate’s competitors and their DRP shops. “I would hope so,” he said last week.

More information:

GIS background check resources

General Information Services

Allstate GIS credentialing

Allstate application letter (redactions)

“Background Checks On Job Candidates: Be Very Careful”

Susan Adams in Forbes, June 21, 2013

“10 REASONS TO DO A BACKGROUND CHECK ON THIRD PARTY VENDORS”

Intelifi

Featured image: Allstate through General Information Services conducts background checks on DRP shop owners and managers. (ZeroPhanToMs/iStock)

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