Ever talk an insurance co. out of totaling a car?

The 2004 Focus wagon got sideswiped this afternoon.  No airbag popped,  both vehicles are completely drivable, no one hurt. 

The drivers mirror got ripped loose. Hanging by the wire. Paint scuffs on both doors. Drivers door is dented. Not caved in, but the character line is fubar.

Let's assume the possibility of it being totaled. Have you ever talked an insurance company out of totaling a vehicle? Like if the adjuster values the car at $2,000 and the damage is estimated at $2,500. Totalled car. What if you asked for, say, $1,900? 

I'd like to keep this car if possible. No I haven't contacted the insurance or set up an inspection, just preparing for a worst case scenario. 

Can't say how it works up there but I'll tell you what I did in Florida.

Three months after buying my Miata a guy in front of me took an exit then decided he shouldn't have.  He hit his brakes and came back into my lane hitting my front passenger corner.  Car was still drivable after getting the headlights up.  They totaled it after a couple of weeks.  We disagreed on it's value.  I fought them six months until I ended up getting 25% more than I had paid for the car.  My theory was they shouldn't get the benefit of my working a good deal buying it.  So after we agreed on value I told them I wanted to buy it back and they came back at me with $350ish.  I didn't even argue.  I did no repairs to it but just took it into the DMV and got a rebuilt title.  Drove it another 5 years before fixing the damage. 

TLDR ... don't talk them out of totaling it just asking about buying it back after checking your local laws on rebuilt titles.

I worked in a body shop for a while and I saw it go both ways. I've seen them talk an adjuster into totaling a car and the next guy talk them out of it. 

Like Stampie said, I bought my '68 suburban back for less than $500. Truck was junked but it had my 350 horse 327 in it. Took it home, pulled the engine and trans, and a few other parts and called a buddy who owned a salvage yard.

In the last posting in this thread,  you'll see my Avalon that I bought as salvage and rebuilt. One year and 30k miles later it took a light rear hit. The other guys company lowballed me with a quick check of $780 and I pocketed the cash. I never pushed for a higher payout because I wanted to avoid having to go through the rebuild process again

Here's how I'd approach it on this case:

Since it's only cosmetic damage aside from the mirror (which is a safety item) I'd tell your appraiser up front you'd like to keep the car. We usually can do what we call an 'appearance allowance' which is essentially giving you cash for damage that you are willing to live with. If it costs $1000 to fix a door and I can give you $500 to live with it we all walk away happy. I've addressed the damage and provided compensation and you get to keep your car.

This is way better than 'buying it back' because you won't have to go through the salvage title hurdle.

Remember, most of us total cars based on the value LESS the salvage value. An '04 Focus wagon won't bring much. So if it's a 2500 car with a $400 salvage value it would total out at $2101. We can only pay you up to that figure.

If a car has structural damage or safety concerns (beyond a mirror) an appraiser may not be allowed to use Appearance Allowance due to liability.

According to the interballs, vehicles  have to be inspected before a rebuilt title is issued. $95 for the inspection,  the $95 for the rebuilt title. 

The thing I forgot to mention is I was gifted this car. Mom was talking about getting a new car 2 years ago. Thought of trading in the wagon. I told her they'd give her chump change for it. I'd give the $100 more than they offered. She just said to come pick it up, its mine. Gave her a symbolic $1.

This car owes me nothing except maintenance. 

Had my old volvo 240 totaled a while back.  Guy ran stop sign (at about 15-20 mph)  No significant damaged.  just the 2 passenger side door dented bad enough be a loss and replaced them.  insurance company totaled it out at like 2500, I bought it back for I think 300$.  Hit the junkyard for 2 good doors.  100 or so dollars later and few hours of my time car was good to go.  Never messed with a rebuilt title or anything.  

So basically, unless you absolutely dont want to handle the repairs on your end, let them total it.  Then move on to negotiating a low price to buy it back.  

I twice had insurance companies talked out of totalling my cars. They sent a letter saying car was cosmetically not worth repairing. I negotiated a pay out not totalling the car. It was easier than the rebuilt title way. If your adjuster says they cant, ask for the supervisor. Also super clean the car before they see it, its adds value. 

Recently - unsuccessfully. 
 

keep in mind total loss threshold is a state by state thing. This happened in KS. long thread, sorry. 
 

Car is a 2012 Mustang Convertible. 3.7 V6 with the "premium" package which means it has all the nice goodies like leather and upgraded sound system etc. I bought this car asa CPO with <10k mikes back in 2013 primarily for my wife who always wanted a Mustang vert. Really great car, 300+ hp V6 is more than adequate for daily driving. Over the years we've taken this car all over the place.  At the time of the accident - deer strike, more on that in a sec- the car had right at 100k miles, always garages, and you'd be hard pressed to find a scratch on it. Upgrades included a "style bar - (roll bar with brake light not actual roll bar) wind blocker, upgrade shocks and sway bar links, 19/20 staggered wheel tires, customs painted skunk stripes (painted and cleared not tape) magnaflow exhaust etc etc. 

so last September we were driving on a rural county road when a medium sized white tail popped out of the brush along side the road and I hit her right about the left headlight. 
 

Damage was broken light, grill, bumper cover, hood and left fender. Slightly bent radiator support. No radiator or condenser damage, no airbags etc. easy fix. 
 

local Ford store where we bought the car gave me an estimate for $6500.  Since my wife needed this car for her daily, she works from home but still has errands, appointments etc, I said go ahead and fix it but install the GT bumper, valance and fog lights just as an appearance upgragde. If there's a difference in parts cost - namely lights, I'll pay the difference.

then I got the call from State Farm saying they are totaling the car. They offered me 10k plus tax and some other crap about 10.9k. I told them no thanks, please just fix the car 6.5k less my 1k deductible would be 5.5k - about half the money - for them. No dice.

so I did a nation wide search for 2012 PREMIUM - this is an important comp- mustang verts with similar miles and condition and due to Covid market affects already starting to come in to play, most comps were well over 12k some were on the edge of ridiculous. I provided this info to the insurance company who assured me they would do another market analysis and review the offer. They did review it and offered me another $600 so all in now a bit over 11k. 
 

My step dad has a body shop, we'll really a resto business where he builds tri-5 Chevys in southern MO - not too far away - so we talked and decided to do the buy back option and rebuild the car. Offer to buy back was 4.5k!! Not the few hundred you offen hear about. I asked WTH the deal was abs they said they offered the car via photos to their salvage buyers and that values were way up due to COVID maket and ours was probably an easy fix! A-holes. 
 

So I paid the 4.5k to buy back her car basically by deducting from the total loss offer less my deductible left me with about 6k to fix it.  Funny how close that was to the dealer estimate- what a goofy process that makes sense only to insurance company accountants. 
 

using a family shop that's 4.5 hrs from my house was a slow process. 

Took the opportunity to add some visual upgrades and do a complete color change from white with black leather to bright blue metallic with pearl clear and white leather interior. Took the whole car apart to repaint and replace anything remotely worn and am almost done - a year later 

In the end wife will be happy, we have a beautiful cruiser and accrued no new debt so I guess we did ok in the end 

In reply to seadoorider :

Thanks for the input, everyone.  First things first, I'll see what her insurance company plans on doing, then go from there. 

"Ever talk an insurance co. out of totaling a car" -- Yes, and later regretted it. After the feels wore off I realized I would have been better off if I had just taken the payout and moved on. YMMV

I was all set to talk mine out of totaling my ex's Tercel, but the money they paid me and the buyback ended up putting $2500 in my pocket on a car that I thought was only worth $2500 to start with.  They valued it at $3500, minus a $500 deductible and $500 buyback.

I took the salvage title and the cash.  Then one day my wife ran into a concrete wall.  She was fine, and I showed up at the scene before the tow truck did with the title.  I just signed it and handed it to the driver.  It was kind of nice because it was like I pre-sold the car and got to keep it.  Then when it met it's final death I figured I got two free years of car ownership.

If they decide to total it (at least in the three states where I had experience... (PA, TX, CA) you have the right to decline the claim.  If you make a claim and they give you news you don't like, you can just decline.  The downside is that you can't re-claim, and they now know about the damage.  So if someone T-bones you on that side and you actually need something done, they are going to likely give you far less when they total it.  The law requires them to return it to the condition it was before the accident.  If they already know its wrinkled....

The other thing I usually do is I don't carry full insurance on a car that isn't worth much anymore.  My truck is probably a $3000 truck (or $4500 during the pandemic), but it has liability only.  The van ($6500) I was on the fence until my insurance company quoted me super cheap numbers for full coverage so I bit.

The Mustang example is a bit extreme but illustrates what salvage value can do to a buyback (it's really called 'retention') situation. Salvage on Mustangs in high. Ditto high end German cars and pickup trucks. So we often wind up totaling stuff that is very repairable simply because it's in our best interest dollars/cents-wise to do so.

With the increased complicated systems in modern cars there are always expensive, unwanted additional surprises during repairs. Personally, in the last year or two I've started pushing cars over the edge to being totals because I'm tired of getting burned by them during the repair process. Modern vehicles SUCK. The manufacturers don't want them repaired either; they want you to buy a new one. Let me tell you about Ford Explorer frame rails...

Unless it's an old car that's easy to fix I strongly discourage people from retaining anything halfway modern if we call it a total. There's a reason we total stuff! It rarely ever is to your monetary advantage to keep and repair a totaled car.

BTW, if you have a bank loan on it you can forget about doing a retention. No lender is going to want to be involved in that.

They didn't total it. The lizard sent me a check for $1,072 for what amounts to $80 worth of Pick-n-Pull parts. WOOT!

In reply to Appleseed :

That's a win, glad it worked out. Wife's rusty 2000 focus wagon got rear ended a couple years back and a hatch, bumper and bumper support didn't total it out either. 

In reply to Appleseed :

Haaa...  That reminds me of when someone broke into my F250.  They took the factory AM/FM radio (that's a lot of work for a terrible radio) and damaged the little trim strip on the dash under it.  They also took a nice leather trench coat from behind the seat.  They sent me a check for $1400 which I actually sort of challenged.  They insisted that the whole dash needs to be replaced instead of just the strip.  Two days later I was at a fleam market down the street (at a church... that takes balls) where I found my trenchcoat for sale complete with my starbucks receipt still in the pocket.  Could have called the police, but instead I negotiated to buy it for $5.  He had probably 15 radios, but I didn't see mine.  So I went to a Ford junk yard in Sun Valley and got a radio and the trim piece for $25.

I didn't but an attorney buddy did. Got me all the money and the car.