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Total Loss: Why the First Check Is Low, and Why Cashing It Can End Your Leverage

Short answer: your first total loss number is a software output from a valuation product the insurer buys, not an appraisal of your car. Most people deposit the check because it feels like the offer, and that one move is usually where the money is lost. The valuation product is sold to insurers on holding settlement costs down. It often leaves out sales tax and fees you are legally owed, and in most policies cashing the check ends your right to challenge it. None of this is legal advice, and your state and policy set the details, but here is how the number is built and what you can do before you sign.

By Anthony Braswell for Quorum Industries LLC, The Autobody Directory · Updated 2026-08-16 · 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

Before you deposit or sign anything

The five-minute version. Check these before you cash the check:

The rest of this page explains each one and how to act on it.

Where the number comes from

The total-loss offer is not a person looking at your car. It is a valuation report, and one vendor, CCC, runs an estimated 75 percent of that market. The report selects vehicles it calls comparable and then applies a series of adjustments to reach an actual cash value, or ACV.

Worth knowing: CCC's shop estimating product and its insurer total-loss valuation product are two different tools. When a car is totaled, the repair estimate is set aside and the carrier's Market Valuation report takes over. That valuation product is sold to insurers, and it is marketed to them on reducing total-loss costs. So the number you are handed was produced by the other side's tool, not a neutral one.

Why it tends to come in low

This is contested in court, so here is the honest version. Multiple class actions, and in 2024 a California district attorney, allege that insurers and their valuation vendors systematically undervalue totaled cars: pulling comparable vehicles from outside the local market and applying condition and other adjustments the plaintiffs call arbitrary and unsupported, all of which push the value down. Allstate and CCC settled one such case. These are allegations and settlements, not a blanket proven fact, but the pattern is documented well enough that the first number should be treated as an opening bid, not a verdict.

The trap: cashing the check

In most auto policies, once you accept and deposit the settlement, you waive your right to invoke the appraisal clause, which is the formal way to dispute the amount. So the most natural thing to do, deposit the check, is also the move that surrenders your leverage. Do not cash it until you have checked the number against the market.

The money nobody mentions: sales tax and fees

In many states the insurer owes you sales tax on your vehicle's value as part of a total-loss settlement, plus title and registration fees. We are reading every state's own rule rather than repeating a survey, and twenty-one of fifty-one jurisdictions are read and verified first-party so far. Of those twenty-one, fifteen require it outright (California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington), and six make it conditional: Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina and Ohio.

Tennessee's rule is the bluntest we have found, and it is aimed at a negotiating tactic rather than at tax. Its Department of Commerce and Insurance bulletin says the sales tax owed on the vehicle's value at the time of loss "should be included in all settlements and should not be used as a bargaining chip in negotiating a settlement or only in those cases where the insured or claimant makes demand for payment of sales tax." In other words: the insurer may not sit on it until you think to ask. Failure to follow the procedure "will be considered an unfair trade practice." The one carve-out is leased vehicles.

"Conditional" is where the money actually goes missing, and it is the part a percentage-of-states figure destroys. Arkansas is the clearest example. If the insurer settles by handing you a replacement vehicle, taxes and fees "must be paid at no cost to the insured other than the policy deductible", unconditional. If it settles in cash instead, the measure changes to fees actually incurred: no purchase, no incurred fee, no payment. Same statute, same state, and the settlement method your adjuster chooses decides whether you ever see it.

Washington closes the loophole the retention question opens. Its rule requires the settlement to include all applicable government taxes and fees the claimant would have incurred buying the loss vehicle just before the loss, and adds that they "must be included in the settlement amount whether or not the claimant retains or subsequently transfers ownership of the loss vehicle." Keeping the wreck does not cost you the tax.

The remaining thirty jurisdictions are not yet read, and we will not guess at them. A lot of people never receive the tax and fees they are owed for the simple reason that they never ask. Ask in writing, and ask which settlement method the insurer is using.

Who is actually allowed to set your number

Determining a claim settlement is a licensed activity, not a free-for-all. In Florida a licensed all-lines adjuster (the 6-20 license) is who may legally settle a claim and determine the amount payable, auto included. South Carolina, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania license motor vehicle damage appraisers specifically; South Carolina's department requires applicants to "pass the state examination prior to applying for a license," and unlicensed appraising there is a misdemeanor. We do not describe what those exams cover; the syllabi are the vendors' and we have not read them.

That cuts two ways for you. The insurer's number should trace back to a licensed adjuster, not just an algorithm (more on that in AI is grading your auto claim). And you are allowed to bring your own licensed, independent appraiser to counter it. A correction on public adjusters in Florida, because we carried this half wrong until we read the statute: the 3-20 licence is titled "All Lines Public Adjuster" on the licensing department's own pages, and the statutory definition reaches any claim for loss or damage covered by an insurance contract (with bodily injury, death and noneconomic damages carved out), so it is not, as commonly repeated, a property-only licence. What IS property-only is most of the statute's consumer protection: the fee caps, cancellation windows and written-estimate duties in Fla. Stat. 626.854(5)-(18) apply only to residential property and condo policies, so on an auto claim those guardrails, including the fee caps, do not attach. This page does not tell you to hire a public adjuster; it tells you what the licence covers. For a car dispute the instrument built into the policy itself is the appraisal clause. See when insurance won't pay for a proper repair for how that clause works, and who is allowed to set your number for the licensing map.

How to push back

Before you cash anything:

  1. Build the market case. Pull local dealer quotes and private-party listings for your exact trim, mileage, and options. Dealer retail on a comparable car is strong evidence of ACV.
  1. Dispute specific errors, not the vibe. Check the report's comparables for the wrong trim, wrong mileage, missing options, or cars pulled from outside your area, and challenge those line by line. Gather service records, tire and upgrade receipts, and option verification.

Options are not a theoretical worry: a state examination found them missing. Missouri's Department of Commerce and Insurance examined one auto insurer's claim files and recorded, as Finding 18, that "for 12 claims, the Company did not effectuate a fair and equitable settlement of a claim by failing to include all optional equipment of an insured's vehicle in the total loss settlements, resulting in underpayments." A separate Missouri stipulation with a different auto insurer alleges that in seven of sixteen claims it "did not issue a sales tax affidavit or payment of the sales tax to the claimant." Both documents, and what they do and do not prove, are quoted in adjuster scorecards and the personal licence.

  1. Invoke the appraisal clause if they will not move. Each side hires an appraiser, and a neutral umpire breaks a tie. It is first-party only, meaning your own policy, not the other driver's. Appraisers who handle these disputes commonly report offers rising by roughly 10 to 30 percent once solid comparables are on the table; treat that as practitioner experience, not a controlled study. In Texas this clause is no longer optional for the insurer to include, and the state is moving to make insurers tell you about it in the claim letter. That is set out in the Texas section further down this page.
  1. Demand the tax and fees in writing, and file a complaint with your state insurance department if the insurer stonewalls. That lever works better than arguing with a call center. Find your state's regulator and its complaint page.

Washington wrote the deduction list closed, and gave you thirty-five days to disprove the number

Most state rules tell an insurer how to find comparable vehicles. Washington's goes further and tells it what it may subtract afterwards, in a sentence built around one word.

WAC 284-30-391(5) opens: "Insurers may adjust a total loss settlement through the following methods only:" Then it lists them. If a deduction is not on that list, in Washington it is not available.

Prior damage is the deduction most people are handed, and it has a ceiling. Subsection (5)(a) lets the insurer take back a claim payment it already made, including the deductible, for prior unrepaired damage to the same vehicle. If you took the money for the last dent and never fixed it, the insurer is not paying for it twice. Subsection (5)(b) then covers every other prior-damage deduction, and caps it: such deductions may be made "as long as the amount of deduction is no greater than the decrease in the actual cash value due to prior damage."

Read the measure carefully. Not what the old damage would cost to repair. Not a body shop estimate. What the old damage did to what the car was worth. Those are different numbers, and on an older vehicle the repair figure is frequently the larger of the two.

Every line has to be shown. Subsection (5)(d): "Any additions or deductions from the actual cash value must be explained to the claimant and must be itemized showing specific dollar amounts." A single unexplained condition adjustment is not an itemization.

The salvage deduction gets a market test. If you keep the vehicle the insurer may deduct salvage value, but under (5)(c), on your request it must provide "the name and address of a salvage entity or dismantler who will purchase the salvage for the amount deducted with no additional charge," and that option has to stay open for at least thirty days. The deduction has to be a number somebody will actually pay you. That is the same regulatory move New York makes on the repair side, where on request the insurer's estimate has to be a figure a real registered shop will do the work for: see the back-up shop rule.

You get thirty-five days to disprove the settlement. Subsection (6) requires the insurer to reopen the claim file if, within thirty-five days after final payment is sent, you were not able to buy a comparable vehicle for the agreed amount but were able to locate one, without purchasing it, that costs more. The insurer must then locate a comparable car available at the settlement figure, pay you the difference, purchase the car for you, or conclude the loss under the policy's appraisal section. Two things switch the right off: if the insurer already gave you written notice of a specific comparable vehicle available at the settlement amount and you did not buy it within five business days, or if appraisal was already exercised. So find the car, keep the listing, and put the date on it.

The valuation report itself has rules. Where the insurer uses a computerized valuation source, (2)(b)(iv) requires that source's database to produce values for at least eighty-five percent of all makes and models for a minimum of fifteen years, to produce values from current data within a reasonable distance of where the car is garaged (not to exceed one hundred fifty miles), to rely on comparables that were available in the marketplace within ninety days either side of the loss, and to "provide a list of comparable motor vehicles used to determine the actual cash value." If more than thirty comparables were located, it must list at least thirty. That list is the thing to ask for, and it is the document that makes point 2 above checkable rather than rhetorical.

Limits worth stating plainly. This is one state. It is a regulation of the Office of the Insurance Commissioner, filed in 2009 under RCW 48.02.060 and 48.30.010, not a statute. And it governs the methods in the rule: the section opens by allowing an agreed value reached on a different methodology, which must then be documented in the claim file and which the insurer must take reasonable steps to keep "accurate and representative of the actual cash value of a comparable motor vehicle in the principally garaged area."

"Functionally impossible": what the valuation vendor told Washington's regulator

Washington then proposed going further than the rule above. In 2025 the Office of the Insurance Commissioner put out changes to those claims-handling rules including, as CCC's own counsel quotes the draft, a requirement that "[w]hen the insurer uses a computerized source for determining statistically valid actual cash values ... [t]he insurer must provide supporting information to demonstrate the comparable motor vehicle's condition."

That is the missing piece in everything above. The comparables set your number, and their condition is the adjustment nobody outside the system can check. Washington proposed making somebody show it.

CCC Intelligent Solutions filed a comment opposing that requirement on 8 August 2025. The objection is worth reading closely, because it is not evasive. It is a scale argument, made in figures the company chose to put on the record:

CCC currently maintains approximately 8 million unique vehicles in [its] databases, including about 202,000 unique vehicles within Washington State. Over 20 million unique vehicles pass through CCC's database annually, with approximately 490,000 in Washington State alone. CCC processed approximately 120,000 valuations in Washington in 2024, which collectively included 510,000 comparable vehicles.

Then the sentence the rest of the letter turns on:

Given these volumes, physically inspecting all comparable vehicles to assess and document their condition is at least impractical, if not functionally impossible.

Be precise about what that concedes, because it is easy to overread and we are not going to. CCC did not say its valuations are inaccurate, and this page does not say so. It said that inspecting every comparable is not feasible at that volume. That is a statement about method and cost.

The significance is in holding it next to what a valuation report does. The report adjusts comparables for condition. The vendor's position is that verifying the condition of those comparables cannot be done at that scale. Both statements can be true at once, and the space between them is where your settlement sits.

What makes the letter genuinely useful is that it closes the other doors itself:

And one argument that cuts CCC's way, included because leaving it out would be dishonest: the company pointed out an inconsistency in the draft. An insurer may use advertised comparables to set actual cash value without verifying their condition, "however those same advertisements would not be allowed to be used by a computerized database like CCC unless the condition of the comparable vehicles is verified."

So when your report carries a condition adjustment against a comparable, the question to ask is the one the vendor's own letter raises: on what basis was that car's condition determined? The existing Washington rule already entitles you to the list of comparables used. This letter tells you what is, and is not, standing behind the condition column.

Limits, and they matter. A rule-making comment is an advocacy document filed by a party with an interest in the outcome. It is good evidence of what CCC says about its own volumes and method. It is not a regulator's finding, and it proves nothing about any individual valuation, including yours. We have also not tracked what Washington did with the proposal after the comment period closed, so nothing here should be read as the rule that was adopted.

New York can cap your total loss at what you paid for the car

New York sets a floor under the offer, and then in one subparagraph puts a ceiling over it.

Regulation 64 lists how an insurer may value a totaled car. Under 11 NYCRR 216.7(c)(1) the minimum cash offer must be one of three things: the average of the retail values for a substantially similar vehicle in the two department-approved valuation manuals current at the date of loss, a quotation for a substantially similar vehicle from a qualified dealer reasonably convenient to the insured, or a quotation from a superintendent-approved computerized database producing statistically valid fair market values within the local market area.

Then subparagraph (iv) turns the arrow around:

If the method used in subparagraph (i), (ii) or (iii) of this paragraph would result in a settlement offer greater than the purchase price plus the cost of substantiated improvements paid by the insured for a vehicle purchased within the 180 calendar days prior to date of loss, the insurer's offer of settlement may be limited to the purchase price, plus the cost of any substantiated improvements, less the deductible. This method of settlement shall not be applicable to motor vehicles acquired by the insured through a private sale or as a gift. A private sale is one in which the seller does not engage in the sale of motor vehicles as an occupation.

Buy a car from a dealer, total it inside six months, and your ceiling can be the bill of sale. Not the market, not the valuation report. What you paid, plus improvements you can substantiate, less the deductible.

Two things follow for anyone in that window. Substantiated improvements are the only thing that lifts the ceiling, and "substantiated" means paper, so keep the receipts. And the rule does not reach private sales or gifts: the regulation defines a private sale as one where the seller does not sell cars as an occupation, so a car bought from a neighbour or handed down in the family is valued the ordinary way.

The Department has been asked twice to narrow this and declined both times. It explained the provision was adopted to deter fraudulent claims, after reports that insureds "were arranging to have their substandard vehicles stolen in order to obtain a settlement based upon the greater dollar amount of the actual cash value of a clean vehicle." Asked in 2001 whether that history confined the cap to theft, it said no: the limit applies "whether the loss occurs as a result of a motor vehicle accident, a motor vehicle theft, or any other kind of occurrence." Asked in the same opinion about a buyer who got an unusually good deal from a dealer and could clearly substantiate a much higher actual cash value, it said the insurer may still limit the offer.

One New York rule runs the other way, for the newest cars. On a total loss of a current-model-year private passenger automobile, the Department describes 216.7(c)(3) as requiring the insurer to pay the reasonable purchase price on the date of loss of a new identical vehicle, less the deductible and an allowance for depreciation on the schedule in the rule itself.

New York is also the state that will not let its insurers name your body shop unasked. That rule, and the door the same Regulation 64 opens in it, is here.

Illinois caps the wear-and-tear deduction at $500, and the other one at nothing

Illinois writes much of its total-loss law as a disclosure you are supposed to receive. Under 50 Ill. Adm. Code 919.80(c), within seven days of declaring a total loss the company must provide the insured with at least the information in the rule's Exhibit A. Exhibit A is written to the car owner in the second person, and its item 7 is the plainest statement on betterment we have found in any state:

The insurance company is allowed to make deductions from the retail value if your automobile has old, unrepaired collision damages. There is no limit to the amount of the deduction.

The insurance company can also make deductions for wear and tear, missing parts and rust, but the maximum deduction may not exceed $500.00.

All deductions must be itemized and specified as to dollar amount.

Two deductions, opposite treatments, in adjacent sentences. Wear, missing parts and rust are capped at five hundred dollars. Old unrepaired collision damage is uncapped. So when a settlement arrives carrying a large condition deduction, the first question is which bucket the insurer put it in, because only one of them is allowed to be large.

Uncapped is not unconstrained, and the body of the rule is where that lives. Under 919.80(d)(4), betterment deductions are allowable "only if" they reflect "a measurable decrease in market value attributable to the poorer condition of, or prior damage to, the insured vehicle", are "measurable, itemized, specified as to dollar amount and documented in the claim file", and the company "does not require the insured or claimant to supply parts for replacement." The five hundred dollar ceiling appears in the same list, attached to "prior wear and tear, missing parts and rust damage that is reflective of the general overall condition of the vehicle considering its age."

Illinois also runs the reopen clock five days shorter than Washington's, and it takes away the option Washington regulates. Its right of recourse at 919.80(c)(2)(F) applies if within thirty days after receiving the claim draft the insured cannot purchase a comparable vehicle, and it puts the insurer to the same four choices: find one at the settlement figure, pay the difference, buy it, or go to appraisal, which the rule says "shall be considered as binding against both parties." It is switched off the same way, by written notice at settlement of a specific comparable vehicle available at that price, and Illinois adds a requirement Washington does not: "The documentation shall include the vehicle identification number."

And on keeping the wreck, Exhibit A tells Illinois owners the opposite of what Washington tells theirs. "In an effort to minimize automobile 'chop shop' crime, the Illinois Vehicle Code does not permit you the right to retain the salvage once your automobile has been deemed a total loss by your insurance company. The insurance company must take possession of the vehicle, if the vehicle is eight model years or newer." We are quoting the Department's own prescribed notice here; we have not read the Vehicle Code section behind it, so treat the model-year line as the Department's summary rather than as the statute.

Kentucky lets you outvote the database, but only if your policy left the door open

Kentucky's unfair claims regulation, 806 KAR 12:095, lets an insurer set actual cash value from a computerized source, and then writes in a way to beat that number:

Absent an appraisal provision in the insurance contract, if the insured demonstrates, by presenting two (2) independent appraisals based on measurable and discernable factors, that the vehicle would have a higher cash value in the local market area than the value reflected in the source's database, the local market value shall be considered when determining the actual cash value

Three things sit in that sentence. Two appraisals, not one. They have to rest on "measurable and discernable factors", so an opinion of value will not carry it. And the consequence is mandatory on the insurer: the local market value "shall be considered."

Then read the first four words, because they are the catch and they are almost never quoted. Absent an appraisal provision in the insurance contract. This route exists for policies that do not already give you appraisal. If your Kentucky policy has an appraisal clause, this is not your remedy, the clause is. Which is why the Texas development in the next section reaches further than Texas: a state that makes the appraisal provision mandatory in every personal auto policy has, in the same stroke, closed any fallback that is conditioned on its absence. Whether that trade favours the car owner depends entirely on which instrument works better in practice, and that is not a question the rulebooks answer.

The same subsection puts two duties on the database itself. Its value "shall be adjusted to reflect any value of enhancements to the motor vehicle not accounted for by the database", and where "the vehicle's condition does not meet the criteria for value used in the source's database, the actual cash value amount may be adjusted."

Kentucky's right of recourse runs on the same thirty-five day clock as Washington's, triggered when the insurer is notified within thirty-five days of receipt of the settlement check that the insured cannot purchase a comparable motor vehicle. The insurer must then locate a comparable car at its own figure, pay the difference or buy the car, or conclude under the policy's appraisal provision, which "shall be considered as binding against both parties, but shall not preclude or waive any other rights either party has under the insurance contract or law."

And on deductions Kentucky adds a word the other three do not. Where a settlement deviates from the prescribed methods, the deviation must be documented, and "any deductions from the cost, including deduction for salvage, shall be measurable, discernable, itemized, and specified as to dollar amount and shall be appropriate in amount." Washington and Illinois require a deduction to be itemised. Kentucky also requires it to be the right size.

Texas made the appraisal clause mandatory, and is about to make insurers tell you it exists

Step 3 above assumes your policy has an appraisal clause. Most do. Texas stopped assuming.

Senate Bill 458, passed by the 89th Legislature in 2025 without a vote against it in either chamber, added Chapter 1813 to the Texas Insurance Code. The operative sentence is section 1813.003(a): "An insurance policy described by Section 1813.001(a) must contain an appraisal provision that complies with this chapter." Section 1813.001(a) covers personal automobile and residential property policies delivered, issued for delivery, or renewed in Texas, and lists the carriers it reaches: capital stock companies, mutuals, county mutuals, Lloyd's plans, reciprocal and interinsurance exchanges, farm mutuals, eligible surplus lines insurers where Texas is the insured's home state, and the FAIR Plan Association. It does not reach commercial policies or the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.

The chapter also says what the clause is for and how far its answer binds. It is "intended to provide a type of dispute resolution process solely to determine the amount of loss when that amount is in dispute between the policyholder and the insurer." It "does not affect any applicable policy terms." And the number it produces sticks: "Except for fraud, accident, or material mistake relevant to the appraisal or an appraisal award made without authority, the amount of loss determined by an appraisal under this chapter is binding as to the policyholder and the insurer."

The Act took effect 1 September 2025 and applies to policies delivered, issued for delivery, or renewed on or after 1 January 2026. So on a Texas personal auto policy written or renewed this year, the appraisal clause is not a feature of your particular contract that you have to go hunting for. It is a requirement of state law.

The rules that fill it in are proposed, not adopted. The statute told the commissioner to write rules setting the period in which an appraisal must be completed and "mandating an appraisal for total loss and damage of the property that is the subject of the appraisal." The Texas Department of Insurance proposed 28 TAC 5.9800 through 5.9806 in the 8 May 2026 Texas Register, with comments closing 8 June 2026 and a proposed compliance date of 1 September 2026. Read them as a direction of travel, not as law.

As proposed, for personal auto they would require the appraisal provision to let either party demand appraisal unilaterally, forbid conditioning that demand on the parties first reaching an impasse, and cover partial losses as well as total ones. They would put the process on a clock: a written demand within 120 days after the insurer's acceptance or rejection notice under Insurance Code 542.056, a further 30 days for the responding party if a lawsuit is filed first, each side naming its appraiser in writing within 20 days of the demand, an umpire chosen within 15 days, and 40 days for the two appraisers to try to agree. Either party would have to be able to ask a court to appoint the umpire, and where an insurer offers a private umpire-selection vendor instead, it would have to offer at least two and let the policyholder pick.

And they would require the insurer to tell you the clause is there. Proposed section 5.9803 would require an appraisal process notice, delivered at the same time as the acceptance or rejection notice, written in plain language and set in at least 10-point type, explaining where the appraisal provision sits in the policy, how to demand appraisal and where to send the demand, your responsibilities in the process, how to get an umpire appointed including through a court, the time limits, and the effect of the award.

TDI's stated reason for that notice is worth reading for what it concedes. Its 2024 Appraisal Experience Data Call Report found appraisal is demanded in only a small percentage of claims, and that when it is used it "was almost always initiated by the claimant", meaning the policyholder. Over 90 percent of personal auto appraisals were demanded within 120 days of the claim, and over 75 percent of auto awards that did not involve an umpire were made within 40 days of the demand. The tool works, the people who need it mostly do not know it exists, and the state's proposed answer is to make the claim letter say so.

Four states set out above, four different answers to questions most people assume have one. Washington regulates keeping your salvage, Illinois forbids it. Washington and Kentucky give thirty-five days to disprove the number, Illinois gives thirty. Kentucky hands you a two-appraisal route only if your policy has no appraisal clause, and Texas has just made that clause compulsory. That is the argument for reading your own state's rule rather than a national article, including this one.

The clock runs both ways

Two deadlines most people miss, pointing in opposite directions.

The insurer is on a clock. Most states require the carrier to acknowledge a claim, investigate it, and accept or deny it within set windows, commonly 15 to 40 days depending on the state, and to pay promptly once it accepts. California, for example, requires acknowledgement within 15 days and an accept-or-deny decision within 40 days of proof, with written updates if it needs longer. When a carrier blows past its state's deadlines without a written explanation, that is a concrete basis for a complaint to the insurance department.

You are on a clock too, and it is often shorter than the law's. Your policy usually requires prompt notice and a proof of loss, and missing that can void the coverage entirely. It also commonly limits the time to sue to as little as one year from the date of loss or from the denial, even though your state's general breach-of-contract limit is longer. A few states void the shortest clauses (Texas, for instance, will not enforce one under two years), but do not count on it. This pairs with the trap above: do not cash the check without checking the number, and do not let the calendar quietly run out your right to dispute it.

Where this fits

Whether your car is totaled is a separate decision from whether your title gets branded, and both use different math. For those, see how insurance claims work, will my car get a salvage title, and salvage title thresholds by state. If your car is repaired instead, its resale value can still drop; see diminished value claims.

What this page is not saying

We are not saying your insurer's number is wrong. We are saying it is a valuation product's output, that you are entitled to the report behind it, and that the comparables in that report are checkable. Some of those numbers are right.

We are not saying any named insurer or vendor broke a law. The undervaluation matters described above are allegations and settlements in other people's cases, and they are labelled as such where they appear. Nothing on this page is a finding, and only a regulator or a court makes one.

We are not claiming a rule from one state reaches yours. Washington, New York, Illinois, Kentucky and Texas appear here because we read each of those states' own texts. A closed deduction list, a purchase-price cap, a betterment ceiling or a mandatory appraisal clause is that state's rule and binds nobody else.

We do not claim the twenty-one verified tax-and-fee jurisdictions are the answer for the other thirty. They are the ones we have read. The rest are deliberately not characterised, here or in the register behind this page.

This is not legal advice, and nothing here creates a duty your policy and your state's rules do not already create.

Sources

The internal guides linked above carry their own citations. For the outside facts here:

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

Run a body shop? Your shop likely already has a page here, built from public records. Check it and claim it free: verifying only ever adds.
What does claiming add? It's free ›

Where this fits

Each link says what it is for. We add one only when a reader on this page has a real reason to need that page next.