[Rmarchena]

Insurance total lost possibility on Prius

Which is the percentage of Insurance total lost possibility on Prius due to its hightech equipment?

 

[An04Prius]

???

 

[Prius in PA]

I totalled my first Prius in December. The value of the car was placed at about $22,000 (It didn't come fully loaded.) My insurance company, Traveler's, decided to total it after the cost of repair exceeded 75% of the value of the car.

 

[grovey]

Good question rmarchena, with all the high tech stuff, I worry about how easy it might be to total my car. I didn't insure my leather seats and don't want a new car without them.

 

[hyperion]

If a "time frame" is considered, the Prius wreck might more readily be declared total because of the difficulty securing readily, any parts for repair.

 

[ehurtley]

I totalled my first Prius in December. The value of the car was placed at about $22,000 (It didn't come fully loaded.) My insurance company, Traveler's, decided to total it after the cost of repair exceeded 75% of the value of the car.

Most insurance companies have similar policies. If the cost of repair is 66-75% (varies per company,) of the value, they declare it a loss.

A friend of mine was pissed because his car was OBVIOUSLY totalled in an accident, and his insurance company insisted on having it repaired. The repair cost was 75.3% of the Kelley Blue Book value; and multiple safety features failed in the crash. He didn't want his car back. (Air Bags failed to deploy, antilock brakes failed to work. This was a Saturn. He researched, and it appears that the stuff failing was a one-off incident, not part of a trend.)

He would have been fine with a replacement of the same vehicle (it was only 6 months old,) but did NOT want the same car back. (Not to mention he was away from home at the time, so since it was an obvious total loss [even the insurance guy who showed up on scene said so,] he didn't bother to have it towed all the way home, but to the nearest dealer instead. Which later meant a 5 hour bus ride to get his car back.)

 

[DanMan32]

If your seats are not OEM, and you can put the OEM seats back, you often can get your aftermarket stuff back. Seats rarely get damaged in an accident, as that's the whole point of crash safety features: to keep the seats and the occupants attached to them free from harm.

The insurance company may even allow you to just give them the OEM seats uninstalled. Swapping aftermarket for OEM is not uncommon for audio.