[kd5bjo]

> I don't see any reasonable way around this, though. If I have a car that I could replace for $8K and would salvage for $1K, I can't reasonably expect someone else's insurance company to pay $12.5K in costs (for repairs plus rentals/loss of use plus diminished value plus incidentals) to put me back in a place where I then have a crash-repaired car worth $7K plus $1K in cash in my pocket for diminished value.

The problem with that logic is the assumption that the car can be replaced for $8K. To some (maybe most) people, cars are non-fungible and there is a significant amount of personal, non-transferrable value in one particular vehicle, due e.g. to the memories acquired in connection with it.

Part of the reason that people get upset when the insurance company decides to declare their car totaled is that the replacement value offered is significantly lower than they would have accepted for the car had it not been in an accident-- The actuarial value assigned isn't properly valuing the intangibles.

Edit to add: Or, in other words, if the market-clearing price of "comparable" vehicles represented the actual value of the car to its owner, the car would have already been on the used market. The fact that it wasn't signals that there must be some premium over the market price that's necessary to make the owner whole.

[jandrese]

Here is another angle on that "sentimentality" you're talking about. If I've been following the book on every maintenance item, driving gently, and proactively going after any rust that starts to form on the vehicle that is then smashed up in an accident I don't want an "equivalent market value" used vehicle that was neglected and beat to shit by the previous owner just because it's the same make, model, and age. Especially since that previous owner was a chain smoker.

[sokoloff]

True. As a car person, I’m expecting an annoying battle here, and that’s over just replacing the utilitarian aspects of what is a pure utility car for us.

If it was my fairly modified (by me) ‘66 Mustang, that would be very difficult to get to a settlement figure that I’d find fair.

[throwaway173738]

I literally can’t get another light truck that’s as compact and as useful as the one I have. My choice is to buy a giant semi truck or an suv with a 4-foot box bed. There’s more to vehicles then sentimental or book value.

As it stands I’ll probably try to get a mini van and put vinyl floors in.

[linuxftw]

What you describe would be insurance over the minimum coverage, which is available. If you take the minimum, expect to get the 'market value' of a replacement because that's what you agreed to when you initiated the policy.

[sokoloff]

There are two key cases: when you are forced to deal with your insurance company because no one else is at fault. In that case, you get what you bought.

When another driver is at fault and you elect to not use your insurance company for whatever reason. In that case, you didn't have any opportunity to pre-arrange with this other driver's insurance company and you have to fall back on the law as a backstop.

[vel0city]

All dozen of my kids were conceived in the back of that 1997 Toyota Camry. The car was given to me from my Grandpa after he passed. All those memories from the past 27 years clearly has a ton of sentimental value; I put it at $2M. I'll settle for half of that though.

[philwelch]

When you buy car insurance, you're insuring the car for its market value, not for its sentimental value to you personally.