On September 8, 2004, at one o'clock in the morning a repossessor was shot multiple times in the leg and foot. R.C. Simpson was released from the hospital today with almost 100 stitches and six bullet wounds.

The following is an excerpt from a report made by the victim's sister on the industry forum, Repoman.com:

There is a chance that he might lose his foot, he is in surgery right now. For now HPD has not filed any charges because the debtor claims he didn't see the wrecker and that he was only 1 week behind on his last payment. This dead beat is 5 months down and around $2000 behind, also my brothers truck was backed up to the vehicle when the debtor came out on to the balcony, RC told him who he was and what he was doing,and that is when this man just started shooting at him. HPD would not look at any of his papers that showed how far behind this debtor was and to add insult to injury they allowed a family member of the debtor to leave with the car. I will keep everyone updated the best I can and please say a pray that my brother doesn't lose his foot and that justice is served.

This is one of things about the repossession industry that should give any remotely sane person pause, especially in Texas where it is a justifiable use of force to shoot people for stealing your stuff--in reasonable situations, of course. Repossessing autos can be a very dangerous occupation.

There is some debate within the industry as to whether the Texas laws regulating the use of deadly force should be modified or eliminated. I did a little piece a year or so ago using excerpts from a thread on Repoman.com that sums up both sides of the issue nicely.

But the issue I want to address here is not whether repossessors should be able to legally carry a weapon, or whether it should be legal to shoot a repossessor, or even whether it should be legal to shoot another person for any reason. No the issue I want to discuss is much more pernicious. The issue I want to discuss is who is paying for this guy's foot? Seems to me, unless he was working for himself, someone owes the guy a foot like it was before he got it shot.

If you own a legitimate repossession agency working for legitimate financial institutions, you have purchased a significant amount of insurance to cover your operations. The bigger clients require even more-- at least $1 Million in General Liability and another $1 Million in Auto Liability. Plus a $1 Million fidelity bond. This insurance is not cheap and is a major contributor to the extremely low margins experienced by agencies of late.

The kicker is this: Most of that insurance is not needed by an agency, especially the smaller ones. Most of the insurance is required by the clients in order to provide additional coverage for the client's risk. As a result, if any one of the vast majority of repossessors out there were shot, they would not have the ability to cover their emergency health-care costs.

Why? Because there is no money left in the operation to buy medical insurance or disability insurance or even workman's comp insurance for agency employees due to the expense of the huge insurance levels required by the large clients.

From a business perspective, insurance I purchase should be used solely to cover my business risks. Once my risks are adequately covered, a nickel more of insurance premium is wasted capital that could be better invested elsewhere, like in workman's comp insurance or medical insurance. Any additional insurance the client requires an agency to buy, the client should pay for as part of the service provided.

The problem, then, is that there are too many "agency owners" with little to no business sense who buy the insurance to get the business of the larger clients only to find there are good companies out there with the insurance already doing the work. So they lower their price to get some business. The client's natural predatory instincts kick in and they begin a hard execution of the never-ending Request for Proposal. Too much competition erupted in a price war and everyone lost. Only the strongest and the weakest agencies will survive. Natural peril will remove the rest.

Here is another kicker. The client and the repossession agency will likely get sued by the shooter's girlfriend (the debtor) as a result of this poor bastard getting shot. The poor shot bastard will likely sue the agency and the client and the debtor. The agency will lose the client's business behind the matter and likely will have to shut down or rename the company in order to secure insurance in the future.

Having agencies shut down because one of their employees gets themselves shot is a brutal way to pare the competition from the industry, but it is a jungle out there with many natural perils.

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