Auto Insurance Claims: insurance estimates value too high!, vehicle history report, check vehicle history

Question
My car was stolen and recovered.  There was damage to every panel of the
car as well as every piece of interior.  The insurance company states that the
vehicle is repairable and the total amount does not qualify as a total loss.  
They sent me the CCC report that tells how they come about the value of my
car and it has 2 main components that concern me.  
1.  They use an Auto Check vehicle history report, which rates my care
PREVIOUS to the theft.  My concern is that the valuation report does not list
that my car was stolen and recovered, that it was in an accident, that it was
rebuilt, that it was reported by police as abandoned and other items which
are listed on this report.  I am sure that once this claim is complete and
repairs are done these things will show up on these reports as incidents-
lowering the value of my car.

2.  the fair market value is determined by listing similar vehicles and the cost
that they are selling or asking to be sold at.  Many of these prices are the
asking price from local newspapers and other resources.  (of course you are
going to ASK for more!!) and now the "value" of my car is about $4,000 over
KBB value, and nearly $3000 over a Carmax quote I received 2 years ago.  So
they are going to fix my car rather than consider it a total loss-based on this
very high value.  

Is there anything that can be done?? My car is only about $2,000 from being
70% of total value (the amount required for the car to be considered a loss)  

Answer
Hi Jennifer,

Yes, your vehicle will be worth less once all of this is over. Unfortunately, in most states you can not collet diminished value from your own insurance policy so the insurance comapny does not even take that into consideration. Also in most states there is no preset percentage of value that an insurance company must declare a vehicle a total loss. They can generally repair the vehicle all the way to 100% of value or more. The option to repair or total the vehicle is solely the insurance companies decision. It is that way primarily because the insurance companies buy the laws that benifit their business. They do not care about you. They only care about settleing the claim for the least amount of money.

You could ask the body shop to do a more intense look at the vehicle to see if anything was missed. If so, driving up the cost may help you to convince the insurance company to total the vehicle.

I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh