Total loss estimator
Your figures, your threshold, and the arithmetic laid out step by step — including the version where you keep the wreck. Nothing here is a valuation and nothing here is an offer.
Enter a market value and a repair estimate to see the illustration.
What to check before you accept a figure
- Ask for the valuation report and the comparable vehicles it rests on.
- Check the comparables match your car on trim, mileage, condition and region, not only on model year.
- Check whether tax, registration and title fees sit inside the figure, because replacing the car will cost them.
- Declare anything fitted after the sale, with receipts: tow bar, alloys, audio, a lift kit, a wheelchair hoist.
- Check the mileage and service history used are the ones on your car rather than an average.
- Ask what the repair estimate assumes about used or aftermarket parts.
- Ask what happens to the figure if hidden damage turns up once the car is stripped.
What a total loss actually is
Not a judgement about whether a car is repairable. Almost anything is repairable. A total loss is an economic decision: the insurer compares what it would cost to repair the car against what the car was worth, and at some point it decides that paying you the value is cheaper than paying the shop. Where that point sits is the whole argument, and it is set differently by different insurers in different places — sometimes as a percentage of value, sometimes by a formula that adds the salvage value in, occasionally by a regulator that fixes it for everyone.
Which is why this tool asks you for the threshold instead of supplying one. There is no universal number, and a site that prints one is handing its readers something to be confidently wrong with. What the tool can do is show you exactly where your figures fall relative to whatever threshold applies to you, and show you the same figures under the other common test, so you can see whether the two disagree.
The argument is almost never about the threshold
In practice, disputes about total losses are disputes about value. The threshold is a line; the value is where the line is drawn. Move the market value by ten per cent and a repair goes from economic to uneconomic without a single thing changing about the damage. So the questions that matter are the ones about the valuation: which vehicles were used as comparables, whether they match your trim and mileage and condition and region, whether the mileage on the report is the mileage on your car, whether taxes and registration fees are inside the figure, and whether anything fitted after the sale was counted at all.
Ask for the valuation report. Ask for the comparables behind it. A valuation you cannot see is a valuation you cannot argue with, and the difference between the first figure and the last one is usually made of documents rather than of persuasion.
Two things worth deciding slowly
The first is whether to keep the car. The arithmetic is simple — the insurer deducts roughly what it would have received for the wreck — but the consequences are not. In most places the car’s title or registration is permanently marked, which changes what it can be sold for later, what it can be insured for, and sometimes whether it can be put back on the road at all. That is a local question and it outlasts the settlement, so it is worth asking before agreeing rather than after.
The second is whether the settlement actually replaces the car. A payout equal to the market value is not the same as a payout that puts you in the same position: the replacement attracts tax, registration and transfer costs, and a car bought under time pressure rarely costs what a car bought calmly costs. Whether those are payable is a question about your policy and your jurisdiction, but it is a question you have to raise, because it will not be volunteered.
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Frequently asked questions
Why is the threshold field empty?
Because filling it in would be inventing a rule. Total-loss thresholds are set variously by insurers and by regulators, they differ from one jurisdiction to the next, and some places use a formula rather than a percentage at all. Any number we pre-filled would be read as the applicable one, would be wrong for most readers, and would be quoted back at adjusters as though it came from somewhere. So the field is yours to fill, and the tool tells you what it is testing against rather than what the answer is.
What is the other formula it mentions?
The common alternative compares the repair cost plus the salvage value against the market value, rather than the repair cost on its own. It matters because the two tests can disagree on the same car: a wreck with a high salvage value crosses the second test well before it crosses the first. The tool shows both when you give it a salvage figure, and shows neither as the correct one, because which applies is a question about your insurer and your jurisdiction.
Does the number it produces mean the insurer will pay that?
No. It means that is what the arithmetic gives on the figures you typed. An insurer’s own number will differ because it will use its own valuation, its own view of the car’s condition, its own treatment of taxes and fees, and sometimes its own deductions. The point of the illustration is not to predict the offer. It is to let you see which input the difference is coming from when the offer arrives.
Should I keep the car if it is written off?
That is a decision this tool deliberately does not make for you. It shows what retaining the wreck does to the settlement — normally a deduction of roughly what the insurer would have got for it — and there the arithmetic stops. Keeping a written-off car usually changes its title or registration permanently, which affects what it can later be sold for, what it can be insured for and in some places whether it can be driven at all. Those consequences are local, they outlast the settlement, and they are worth asking about before you agree.
Why does it not calculate diminished value?
Because it cannot be calculated honestly from four numbers. Diminished value is the gap between what a repaired car is worth and what the same car would have been worth unrepaired, and it depends on the market for that model, the visibility of the repair, the history record and whether the claim is even recoverable where you are. A figure produced here would be a guess dressed as arithmetic.
What is the single most useful thing on the page?
Probably not the calculator. It is the request for the valuation report and the comparable vehicles behind it. Most total-loss disputes are not arguments about the threshold at all; they are arguments about the value, and they are won or lost on whether the comparables match your car on trim, mileage, condition and region rather than only on model year.
This guide explains how car insurance claims generally work. It is not legal advice, does not create a lawyer–client relationship, and is not a statement of any insurer's or regulator's position. Rules change and differ by jurisdiction; check the cited instrument and, where money or injury is at stake, consult a licensed professional in your jurisdiction.