After a crash, a damaged car is either repaired or totaled. For a totaled car, the questions are what the payout is made of, whether you can keep the car and whether you can drive it. For a repaired car, it is whether anyone pays for the value it lost by having a crash in its history. This section takes both paths in order, with the state rules we have read and when.
This page is general information, not legal, tax or medical advice, and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Injury law and deadlines vary by state and change. Ask a lawyer or the court about your situation.
Most of the rules come from your policy and your state’s laws and courts. Where we name a state, it is one we read; “not read” never means a state has no rule.
Find your place
- The insurer says the car is a total loss, but it still runs: start with a totaled car.
- The car has been repaired and you think it’s worth less now: go to lost value after a repair.
- You want to check a lost value figure: see working out a figure.
- You need to know how long you have: see time limits.
A totaled car
“Totaled” is a money decision, not a verdict on whether the car runs. The insurer compares the repair estimate with the car’s value just before the crash. The Texas Department of Insurance says that if repairs cost “about the same or more than the value of your car”, the insurer will likely total it, and that “some companies might total your car even if the cost to fix it is lower” (TDI, My car was totaled, updated 23 July 2026). Lists of state “total loss thresholds” need care: in the four state laws we read, such percentages decide what title a car gets, not when an insurer must total an insured car. Our guide to what happens when your car is totaled but still drivable goes through Texas, Florida, Illinois and Ohio.
Hand it over or keep it
Hand the car over and the insurer pays its pre-crash value as it works it out, less your deductible if the claim is under your own policy. Keep it, where your state and insurer allow that, and the insurer also takes off the car’s salvage value: what the wreck would have sold for. A kept car usually gets a salvage title. In Texas, Illinois and Ohio, the three states where we read the driving rule, a salvage car can’t legally be driven on public roads until it has been repaired and retitled, with narrow exceptions such as driving to an inspection; in Texas and Illinois the bar can apply before the salvage title is issued (Tex. Transp. Code 501.09111, 625 ILCS 5/3-117.1, Ohio Rev. Code 4505.11, read 6 November 2026).
Neither path is right for everyone. It turns on repair costs, how long you meant to keep the car, and whether you could register and insure it again.
The payout, the loan and the rental
The payout starts from the car’s actual cash value, which the Texas regulator’s consumer guide describes as the cost to replace your car minus depreciation (TDI, Auto insurance guide, updated 11 December 2025). You can ask the insurer for its valuation report and the comparable cars it used. If you owe more on a loan than the payout, that gap is what optional GAP coverage is meant to cover (CFPB).
TDI’s guide says you don’t pay a deductible on a claim against the other driver’s insurer; if your own insurer pays first, how subrogation works explains what can happen to your deductible. TDI also warns that once a car is totaled, the insurer “might stop paying for the rental a few days after telling you”. Our page on a rental car when the crash wasn’t your fault covers rentals.
Lost value after a repair
A repaired car can sell for less than the same car with no crash history, even after a good repair. A claim for that drop is a diminished value claim. It differs from a bad repair, and doesn’t arise the same way for a totaled car, whose payout already reflects its full pre-crash value. Whether anyone has to pay depends first on whose coverage you claim under:
- The at-fault driver’s insurer. Texas’s insurance department says an insurer “may be obligated” to pay a third-party claimant for lost market value “regardless of the completeness of the repair” (Bulletin B-0027-00, 6 April 2000). North Carolina requires liability policies to offer an appraisal process when the two sides’ figures for lost value are more than $2,000 or 25% of the car’s pre-accident retail value apart, whichever is less (G.S. 20-279.21(d1)). Where the at-fault driver’s car had the insurance Michigan requires, Michigan’s no-fault law limits it to damages “up to $3,000.00 to a motor vehicle” for accidents after 1 July 2020, to the extent not covered by insurance (MCL 500.3135(3)(e)); see Michigan no-fault insurance for the rest of that system.
- Your own collision coverage. The policy’s words decide. The Texas Supreme Court held in American Manufacturers Mutual Insurance Co. v. Schaefer (17 October 2003) that the standard Texas policy doesn’t require payment for diminished value when the car “has been fully and adequately repaired”. Georgia’s Supreme Court read one insurer’s car policy as covering lost value in Mabry (2001).
Those four states, read on 6 November 2026, are the ones we have covered; every other state is “not confirmed”. If you were partly at fault, your state’s fault rule can reduce or bar a claim against the other driver: our fault rule lookup by state shows the rules we have read. Our guide to diminished value claims, with state rows has the full table and North Carolina’s appraisal steps.
Working out a figure
There are two common methods. One is the market-value difference: the value just before the crash minus the value after the repair, each from a named, dated source on the same basis. The other is the “17(c) formula”, named after a paragraph in a 2001 Georgia trial court order: 10% of the value before, times a damage modifier from 0 to 1, times a mileage modifier, as a federal court described it (Baker v. State Farm, M.D. Ga., order of 2 September 2021). Because both modifiers run from 0 to 1, its result can never be more than 10% of the value before.
Online, 17(c) is often called the industry standard. We found it approved for one insurer’s Georgia claims under a court settlement, and Georgia’s insurance department reported in March 2009 that “no single formula can be applied to all diminished value claims”. We found no statute or ruling making it binding on other insurers or in other states, and no public dataset behind the “cars lose X% after an accident” figures, so we don’t give one. The diminished value calculator works both methods on your own figures and shows every step. It is arithmetic on your entries, not what a claim is worth.
Time limits
A claim for damage to a car has its own time limit, separate from any injury claim; don’t assume talks with an insurer pause it. Two examples, read 6 November 2026: in Texas a suit for injury to property must be brought within two years after the cause of action accrues (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code 16.003(a)); in Illinois the period is five years (735 ILCS 5/13-205), but a suit against a local public body, such as a city or county, must start within one year (745 ILCS 10/8-101(a)). These are general rules, not your deadline. Exceptions change them, a policy can set its own limits, and a claim over a government vehicle runs much faster: Texas entitles a government body covered by its Tort Claims Act to notice within six months of the incident (CPRC 101.101). Waiting until the last day is unsafe. If anyone was hurt, the injury claim runs on its own clock: our injury deadlines by state tool shows the rules we have read, and “not confirmed” where we haven’t.
What to gather next
- The repair estimate, final invoice and parts list, photos of the damage and the finished repair, and the odometer reading at the time of the crash.
- For a total loss: the valuation report and the salvage value, in writing, and your state’s title agency’s answer on what title a kept car would carry.
- For lost value: dated evidence of the value before and after, and the insurer’s method and figures in writing.
- If the car is financed or leased: a call to the lender or leasing company, and any GAP provider.
- The dates: the crash, the total loss call, each offer. Check the time limit now with the court clerk, not after talks end.
Keep dealings with the insurer in writing; our page on how insurance adjusters work explains who you are dealing with. If a dispute stays stuck, your state’s insurance department takes written complaints, and a lawyer or legal aid can say how your state’s law applies.
Sources checked on 6 November 2026.
