Vehicle value & property damage calculators

Live today: diminished value using the 17c formula. Total-loss and property-damage claims are covered in the sections below, which explain what an insurer owes and how the figure is built.

This is a property claim, not an injury claim — it has nothing to do with medical bills or pain and suffering. Diminished value is the resale value your car permanently loses just because it now shows an accident on its history report, even after flawless repairs. A buyer pays less for a previously-wrecked car, and you can usually recover that gap from the at-fault driver's insurer. If the same crash also injured you, that is an entirely separate claim against the same policy — the car accident settlement calculator values the injury side of it.

The standard estimate is the 17c formula, the method most insurers recognise: take 10% of your car's pre-accident value (the base loss cap), then apply a damage multiplier (from minor cosmetic to severe structural/frame damage) and a mileage multiplier (the more miles on the car, the less value it had left to lose). The result is an orientation figure — insurers acknowledge 17c but are not bound by it, so an independent appraisal often supports a higher number.

The 17c result is a starting point. These factors decide where your real number lands:

To claim diminished value you generally need a third-party claim against the at-fault driver (your own insurer usually won't pay your car's diminished value), your car's accurate pre-accident market value (KBB/NADA) and, ideally, an independent appraisal report. Have those ready before you run the calculator. Damage caused by a commercial vehicle is worth a second look on the injury side as well, because carrier policies are many times larger than a private driver's — see the truck accident settlement calculator. The figure here is illustrative, not a guaranteed payout.

A total loss cancels the diminished-value question. When an insurer declares your car a total loss it is buying the car from you, so there is no repaired vehicle left to have lost resale value. What you are owed instead is actual cash value: what the car was worth immediately before the crash, not what you paid for it and not what it would cost to replace with a new one. Most states also require sales tax and title fees to be included in that figure.

Whether it is a total loss is a threshold, not a judgement. Insurers compare the repair estimate against the car's value using either a percentage threshold set by state law — commonly 70% to 80% — or a total-loss formula that adds the salvage value to the repair cost. If the repair estimate sits just under your state's threshold you have a repaired car and a diminished-value claim; just over it and you have an actual-cash-value claim instead. It is worth knowing which side of that line your estimate falls on, because the two claims are argued completely differently.

A property damage claim is broader than the car. The same claim covers everything of yours the crash destroyed — a child seat, a laptop, tools, a phone, an aftermarket stereo — and, in most states, a reasonable rental or loss-of-use amount for the days you were without a vehicle. These lines are routinely left off a first offer simply because nobody itemised them, and they are the easiest part of a property claim to recover, because each one is a receipt rather than an argument.

If your car was repaired rather than written off, the diminished value calculator above gives you the third figure: the resale value the repair could not restore.