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What a Salvage Auction Has to Do With Your Car Being Written Off

Short answer: The price a wrecked car is expected to fetch at auction is an input to the write-off decision, not a result of it. It is the one number in the test that nobody is required to show you.

By Anthony Braswell for Quorum Industries LLC, The Autobody Directory · Updated 2026-09-05 · How this was written, and what the machine may not do

How this page was produced: Researched, drafted and checked with AI assistance under human direction, and signed off by the named author. How this site is written

The three numbers

Copart describes the decision in its own annual report, signed under Sections 302 and 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act:

"The vehicle is inspected by the insurance company's adjuster, who estimates the costs of repairing the vehicle ... in order to estimate its PAV."

"If the cost of repair is greater than the PAV less the estimated salvage value, the insurance company generally will classify the vehicle as a total loss."

[COMPANY] PAV is pre-accident value. Tier that precisely: a company's account of industry practice, written by a business whose revenue depends on it. Not a statute, not a regulation, not a court's finding, and never to be cited as a legal standard. The shape of the test is the point:

repair cost > pre-accident value - salvage value

Three numbers, not two. Raise the third and the right-hand side shrinks, so the test is met at a lower repair cost: a higher expected auction price means a car is written off at less damage. That is a property of the arithmetic as written. We are not saying that anyone inflates that number, and nothing in the documents behind this page shows that anyone does.

Who gains when the wreck sells for more

The auction does not keep the proceeds. RB Global, which owns Insurance Auto Auctions, states in its 2025 annual report that under its commission contracts "the consignor receives the gross proceeds from the sale less a pre-negotiated commission rate", and under another contract type "receives the gross proceeds from the sale less a fixed flat fee". [COMPANY] Copart sells vehicles in the United States "primarily as an agent", booking only its fees as revenue. [COMPANY]

The consignor is usually the insurer: Copart obtained "81%, 81%, and 83% of the total number of vehicles processed during fiscal 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively, from insurance company sellers". [COMPANY] Where the insurer took the wreck, the sale money goes to the company that paid your claim. If you kept it, it does not.

The auction is paid more at a higher price too:

"Because our revenues under PIP are directly linked to the vehicle's sale price, we have an incentive to actively merchandise those vehicles to maximize the net return."

[COMPANY] PIP is the Percentage Incentive Program, one of three fee arrangements a seller can elect; Copart describes its selling fees as a percentage of sale price, tiered by sale price, or flat.

Both therefore do better when the wreck sells for more. But that is the realised price, settled after the write-off decision; the number inside the test is the salvage value the adjuster expects beforehand. We are not claiming there is a conflict of interest at the auction, and we are not alleging one at the insurer either. At the auction the interests are aligned. At the insurer, on Virginia's statute below, one party sets both figures, makes the decision and takes the proceeds. Nothing here shows that changing any decision, or that writing a car off is cheaper for an insurer than repairing it. Yet that number also decides a legal status, a branded title, which follows the car to every later owner. Nobody in the room represents that person.

The states whose statutes name a salvage value

In most places the formula is practice, not law. Virginia and Washington set repair cost against value net of salvage; Idaho uses the same figure with the opposite sign.

Virginia. Va. Code section 46.2-1600 defines a salvage vehicle to include a late model vehicle whose estimated cost of repair "would exceed its actual cash value less its current salvage value". [STATUTE] "Current salvage value" means "the salvage value of the vehicle, as determined by the insurer responsible for paying the claim", or, absent a responsible insurer, 25 percent of actual cash value. "Actual cash value" means the retail value before the damage "as determined, using recognized evaluation sources, either (i) by an insurance company responsible for paying a claim or (ii) if no insurance company is responsible therefor, by the Department". [STATUTE] Both sides come from the party paying the claim, and only the pre-accident value is tied to recognized evaluation sources. Virginia's 75 percent in this site's threshold register governs a different limb, recovered stolen vehicles.

Washington. RCW 46.04.514 covers a vehicle where the owner, an insurer or someone acting for the owner "has determined that the cost of parts and labor plus the salvage value has made it uneconomical to repair the vehicle". [STATUTE] Its insurance regulation goes further. WAC 284-30-320(18) defines a total loss as a determination by the insurer "that the cost of parts and labor, plus the salvage value, meets or exceeds, or is likely to meet or exceed, the 'actual cash value' of the loss vehicle". [STATUTE] (Emphasis added.) It adds that "[o]ther factors may be considered in reaching the total loss determination, such as the existence of a biohazard or a death in the vehicle resulting from the loss", so the arithmetic is not the whole of it. [STATUTE] A regulator has written the insurer's mere expectation, before any auction, into the definition.

Idaho points the other way, by one word. Idaho Code section 49-123(2)(o) covers a vehicle whose owner or insurer "determines that the cost of parts and labor minus the salvage value makes it uneconomical to repair or rebuild". [STATUTE] Subtracting salvage from the repair cost rather than from the car's value makes a car less likely to qualify, not more. Whether that is deliberate or a drafting artefact the text does not settle, and this page does not assert either.

Three of the fifty-one jurisdictions in this site's threshold register carry a salvage value term in the operative test; forty-eight do not, so far as established. Nine rows were opened for this work, six confirmed clear; the other forty-two rest on the register's verbatim reads of 2026-09-03, made to record percentages. Idaho and Washington show the term can sit in a limb with no percentage, so the forty-two are an absence in the register, not in the law.

The chart that says otherwise

A compilation published for subrogation lawyers, probably your first search result, defines its key term: [REPORTED]

"Cost of Repair + Salvage Value > Actual Cash Value. The vehicle is a total loss when the ACV is equal to or less than the cost of repairs plus the salvage value."

It applies that sentence, in identical words, state after state. Two reads a day apart gave different totals, 21 and 23, so this page publishes no number.

Its California entry carries the formula and cites Martinez v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Co., 13 Cal. Rptr. 3d 857 (Cal. App. 2004), Cal. Veh. Code section 544, and Cal. Veh. Code section 11515. [REPORTED] Section 544, read on two hosts, turns on the owner or insurer considering it "uneconomical to repair the vehicle"; "salvage value" does not appear. [STATUTE] The section 11515 limbs the entry reproduces carry no salvage term either. [REPORTED] Martinez was not read here, so this page says only that the sections read do not contain the formula.

Its Virginia entry gives a 75 percent threshold and cites Va. Code section 46.2-1602.1, not section 46.2-1600, the clearest statement of the formula found in this work. That absence comes from reading the entry, not from searching the file whose totals two reads disagreed about. [REPORTED]

The chart is probably right about what the industry does. But those statutes delegate the judgment by saying only "uneconomical to repair", the formula fills the gap, the expected auction price sits inside it, and no public instrument found in this work says so. Your state's percentage may therefore not be what decided your car: this site's register records that in most rows the salvage brand is keyed to the insurer's own determination, its payment, or its taking the vehicle, the percentage governing the case where no insurer is involved. That tally is the register's, not re-checked here.

If you work on cars rather than own the wreck

Many buyers here are the recycled parts supply. Copart maintains a database of approximately 1 million registered members "in the vehicle dismantling and recycling, rebuilding, used vehicle dealer and export industries". [COMPANY] LKQ tells its shareholders: "We procure salvage products by dismantling total loss vehicles, which we typically acquire through regional salvage auctions", and "To the extent that the number of bidders increases, it may have the effect of increasing our cost of goods sold for wholesale salvaged products." [COMPANY] It adds that state titling rules set its input costs: [COMPANY]

"Whether states issue salvage titles is important to the supply of inventory for the vehicle recycling industry because an increase in vehicles that qualify as salvage vehicles provides greater availability and typically lowers the price of such vehicles."

The same risk factor says the industry "generally favors a definition that expands the number of damaged vehicles that qualify as salvage", and that "certain interest groups, including repair shops and some insurance associations, may oppose this type of legislation". [COMPANY] Anyone assuming the trade wants fewer cars branded is contradicted by a filed document.

RB Global's current filing describes "tiered buyer transaction and other fees earned from buyers" without saying the tiers rise with the sale price. That statement belongs to IAA's final annual report for the period ended 1 January 2023, describing "a tiered structure that increases with the sales price of the vehicle". [COMPANY] Two filings three years apart, IAA's signed 22 February 2023 and RB Global's covering the year ended 31 December 2025, kept apart here.

What we could not verify

  1. No document found connects any auction's price expectation to any adjuster's arithmetic. That pathway was looked for and not found. We do not claim that any auction has influenced any individual decision to write off a car.
  2. Copart's formula is a company's account of practice, not a legal standard.
  3. Neither auction company discloses a take rate, buyer fee schedule or market share, and Copart does not disclose how buyer fees are computed. Both fee pages were walled.
  4. Nothing here establishes that being written off harms you; whether it leaves you worse off than a repair is a separate question.
  5. Whether other states' insurance codes define total loss with a salvage term, as Washington's does, is not established. Washington is one state.
  6. The trade compilation was read twice, a day apart, and the two reads gave different totals of states carrying its formula, 21 and 23. That discrepancy was not resolved, so neither number is published here and no total of our own is given in its place. Its Virginia entry was read as an entry; the file whose totals disagreed was not searched.
  7. Forty-two of the fifty-one register rows were not re-opened for this page. Their salvage-term absence is an absence in the register, not in the law.

The fair answer on the other side: salvage value is a real recovery on a real asset, and an insurer that ignored it would total fewer cars, pay more, and put that cost into premiums.

What you can actually do

No statute read for this page gives you a right to see the salvage figure used in your claim. Ask for it in writing, with the valuation report behind the pre-accident value, and ask which of the three numbers moved if a borderline decision changes. If you keep the wreck it is deducted from your payout, so it should appear on your settlement documents, and it is worth checking against what comparable wrecks make. In Virginia the statute names who produces it: the insurer paying the claim. If you are buying rather than crashing, check the title brand.

Sources

Statutes and regulations, each confirmed on two independent hosts, each read on 2026-09-04:

Company filings, all on the SEC's EDGAR archive, each read on 2026-09-04:

Trade compilation, cited as reported and not as law:

Corrections

This page was published on 2026-09-05. Nothing on it has been corrected since. If anything here is corrected after publication, the correction will be recorded in this section with the date it was made, the wording it replaced, and the reason for the change. Editing done before publication is not a correction and is not recorded here.

General consumer information: not legal, insurance, or financial advice. Requirements, coverage, and practices vary by state, policy, and manufacturer.

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