Auto Markets And Settlement Of First-Party Totaled Vehicle Claims

Conflict over the settlement of totaled vehicle claims remains one of our most litigated issues of the day.

Typical allegations in the litigation include insurers’ failure to comply with laws dealing specifically with totaled vehicles, breach of contract, unfair claims practices, fraud, unjust enrichment, failure to provide proof that the various computer formulas used to determine a totaled vehicle’s value have been appropriately validated, and misuse of statistical methods.

The principal focus of this commentary is the regulatory standards for settling total losses and a comparison of how the market for settling total losses is distinguished from the automobile retail market.

A future commentary will describe some of the statistical problems that insurers face in using third-party vendor computer programs to value total losses.