how does insurance co determine value when totaled

[Gimpy1]

Yes that can be done provided that you reach an agreed repair price with a shop and you don't have a state mandated TL threshold. Again it all depends on the Insurance company.

 

[StewartMorrisonv]

Talking about my own experience with one of the companies, they are following the principle that your car is "totaled" if your car was in a really bad accident, and the causes say that this car has no "future". It's done, not worth it, buy another one. Ask yourself how much money would you get for this car before the accident? If the repairs cost more than the car itself make your conclusion. I didn't get into trouble like this, but one of my friends yes. He told me that the insurance company Money Expert didn't pay him the money, but he agreed with its decision. Because his car looked really bad. Thank God that he survived. Although, the price for this insurance car was so affordable for him that he didn't regret paying them.

 

[gizzsdad]

I imagine companies differ somewhat on their approach. I only have one experience, about 2 1/2 years ago. My wife hit a deer in her 2007 Frontier, that we had paid $20K for when new 10.5 years earlier. It had about 85K miles, but was clean and well cared for.

It was towed to the body shop, and they started an estimate, and stopped and called the ins. co. when they got over $9K when adding the air bag. It was going to be a total.

So now the question is how big will the check be. I had done some checking and had several examples from $12k - 14K. I would be happy with $13.2K. The adjuster called me and offered $11.5K, and I told him I had a higher number in mind. He had never seen the truck, outside of some pix from the body shop. He had 3 prices (from their system), for poor, fair and good. I told him it was very clean, he said it would qualify as good, and asked me how $13K sounded, and I thought that was close enough. Sent a check less the deductible for $12.5K.

All-in-all, I was very happy with the experience.