Your car was worth more than they offered.
Total loss or collision, Koala benchmarks your vehicle against real comparable sales and builds the case for a fair valuation, including the costs the offer left out.
Free while in beta · Koala is not a law firm
What you're up against
Total-loss valuations lean on depreciation and often leave out sales tax, title, and registration on a replacement. A number that looks official can still be thousands below what a comparable vehicle actually sells for.
Backup that does the work.
Reads the valuation
Koala pulls the adjuster's figure and the deductions applied to it: depreciation, condition, and mileage.
Finds comparable sales
It searches real listings and settlements for the same vehicle to establish an honest market range.
Drafts the demand
You get a demand letter that includes recoverable costs like tax and fees, ready for your review.
Auto questions
The things worth knowing before you answer your insurer.
How do they decide my car is a total loss?
When the cost to repair it passes a set share of what they say it's worth. At that point the insurer stops paying for repairs, takes the car, and the whole settlement collapses into one number: the vehicle's actual cash value.
Where does that number come from?
From comparable vehicles the adjuster's valuation report selected, with deductions for mileage and condition. Which comparables were chosen, and which were not, is a judgement, and it is the most productive thing in the entire report to check.
What does the offer usually leave out?
Sales tax, title, and registration on a replacement vehicle. In many states these are recoverable, and in most cases they are simply not in the first offer unless you ask for them.
Do I get my deductible back?
Often, if the other driver was at fault and your insurer recovers from theirs. That's subrogation, and your deductible is usually refunded out of the recovery. It arrives quietly, months later, and only if you're paying attention.
Don't recognise a word in your letter? Look it up in the glossary to find every term, and where it costs you money.
What auto coverage actually promises.
Half of what makes a settlement arguable is knowing what the policy said it would do in the first place: what it covers, what moves the price, and what Koala can't see.
Before you reply to them, read this.
Everything below is free and requires no account. A claim answered from a position of knowing how the process works is a different claim.
- Read it
Reference
The glossary
Actual cash value, proof of loss, the appraisal clause: what each term means and where it bites.
- Read it
Guides
Playbooks for a live claim
Documenting damage before you file, and checking a total-loss valuation line by line.
- Read it
How it works
What Koala actually does
The six stages, what you approve, and what leaves your hands, all before you hand it anything.
See what you're actually owed.
Upload your documents and Koala gets to work. You approve everything before it's sent to your insurer.