What actually changed?
Much of the 2026 agreement is carried forward from 2025. The pricing-zone rules, Select O&A structure, Price Offers, State Farm’s ability to revise Baseline Program Pricing, audit provisions and other major program controls are not new. What changed is more targeted: State Farm is adding or tightening requirements governing what participating shops must do after a glass claim enters the program.
This is not simply an updated price agreement. It is a contract that increasingly tells an independent business how it must perform, document and administer work while the insurer retains control over what it will pay.
Glass Company was required to “consider repair” if appropriate and with customer consent.
Glass Company “must provide glass repair services and complete repair if appropriate” and with customer consent.
Who determines that repair is “appropriate”? The trained technician, State Farm, or the Program Administrator? A safety-sensitive repair decision should not become a cost-control decision.
Required glass installation “and/or repair services.”
Requires glass installation “and repair services.”
Read literally, this can be interpreted to require both replacement and repair capability at every listed Service Center. Combined with the new “must provide” repair language, the change deserves clarification.
New: cancellation and reassignment
When a shop receives a referral but cannot complete the job, the 2026 agreement requires the customer to be notified immediately and the Program Administrator to be promptly informed to request “cancellation and reassignment.”
The obligation does more than require notice. It expressly sends the job back into the Program Administrator’s referral process for reassignment.
Pre-scan and post-scan: required work without a stated payment
The new agreement expressly requires the Glass Company to retain pre-scans, post-scans and the recalibration report, and to provide those documents to the insurance company upon request.
Unlike collision repair operations, auto glass shops under these glass program arrangements generally do not receive a separate payable line item for performing pre- and post-scans. Yet scans consume technician time, equipment, software, subscriptions, documentation time and carry professional liability.
According to IGA’s current understanding of the State Farm glass claims process, Safelite Solutions — State Farm’s TPA — requires participating shops to upload completed calibration reports as part of the process used to obtain payment for applicable recalibration work. The 2026 O&A Agreement itself does not state that payment is conditioned on uploading the completed calibration report. Instead, its language says the report and scans must be retained and provided to the insurer upon request.
If an operating requirement affects whether a shop gets paid, shops should know where that requirement comes from, what contractual document authorizes it, and whether the TPA can add material administrative conditions outside the agreement shops are being asked to accept.
New: recalibration capability must be available
The agreement adds that the Glass Company must have recalibration capabilities “on site or readily available.” It does not define “readily available.” Shops should seek clarity on whether that includes independent calibration centers, mobile providers, remote calibration services and dealerships.
The agreement requires vehicle images — but where is the collection process?
Both agreements contain language requiring shops to capture electronic images of the damaged glass opening before work and post-replacement images, with those images transmitted to State Farm or its third-party administrator.
To IGA’s knowledge, there is no current routine image-collection process for independent shops under the State Farm glass program, nor is IGA aware of such a process having historically been used as the agreement describes.
If State Farm or its TPA intends to enforce this provision, shops deserve advance answers: What images are required? How are they transmitted and retained? Will metadata be collected? Will images affect audits or KPI scoring? Will they be subject to automated or AI review? And who pays the shop for the additional work?
ANSI, FMVSS and AGRSS: putting standards in a contract is not verification
The agreement requires participating companies to perform work in accordance with ANSI, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and AGRSS published industry standards and procedures.
A requirement on paper is not an enforcement program.
The O&A Agreement does not establish an independent inspection, certification or job-by-job verification mechanism demonstrating that a participating shop actually complies with those standards.
Without meaningful verification or enforcement, citing ANSI, FMVSS and AGRSS in the agreement does not by itself establish that the network has validated the safety or quality of the work being performed.
The business performing the work still bears the real-world responsibility for the installation and the vehicle it returns to the consumer.
What did not change?
- State Farm establishes Baseline Program Pricing and may revise it at its sole discretion.
- Customer-choice State Farm jobs can still be pulled into contracted pricing, not merely jobs referred by the Program Administrator.
- Select O&A status continues to use KPIs that include “competitive pricing.”
- When a customer asks for shop options, the Program Administrator provides names of Select O&A Participants.
- Select participants may offer additional discounts below Baseline Program Pricing through Price Offers.
- Future pricing structures, amendments or Supplements can be imposed by notice; rejection terminates the agreement.
More operational requirements. More documentation. More insurer/TPA control. Yet no corresponding language establishing additional compensation for the new work being demanded from the independent shop.
Questions shops should ask before accepting
- Who has final authority to determine whether a windshield should be repaired or replaced?
- Does every Service Center now have to provide both replacement and repair?
- What exactly triggers cancellation and reassignment of a referral?
- How will pre-scans and post-scans be compensated?
- What does “recalibration capabilities on site or readily available” mean?
- Where is the contractual requirement conditioning payment on uploading a calibration report?
- Will State Farm or Safelite Solutions begin enforcing the vehicle-image transmission clause?
- If images are collected, how will they be stored, analyzed and used?
- What independent mechanism verifies compliance with the safety standards referenced in the agreement?