How CCC One values a totaled car, page by page

If your insurer used CCC, you were probably given one number and a document you were not really expected to read. It is usually called a Market Valuation Report, it runs to a dozen pages or more, and almost everything worth arguing about is in the middle of it.

This walks through it in order. The section names below are CCC's own, taken from the job aid it publishes for the adjusters who read these reports, and so are the definitions in quotation marks. CCC notes that a report "may vary slightly based on your company's configuration or as a result of state-specific regulations", so yours may differ in detail — but the spine is the same.

Page 1 — the Report Summary Page

Three blocks, and the number everyone stops at.

Claim Information carries the owner, the garage location and the loss vehicle. Insurance Information carries the reference numbers for the report and the claim, the names of the adjuster and of whoever inspected the vehicle, and the odometer.

Valuation Summary is the one that matters. CCC describes it as containing "the Base Vehicle Value, Condition Adjustment, Adjusted Vehicle Value and the Total for the Valuation". Read as arithmetic:

• Base Vehicle Value — what the comparable vehicles produced.
• Condition Adjustment — what was taken off (or added) for your car's condition specifically.
• Adjusted Vehicle Value — the first two combined.

Those three numbers tell you where to look. If the base value seems low, the argument is in the comparables. If the base looks reasonable but the total does not, the argument is in the condition adjustment. They are different arguments with different evidence, and mixing them is the most common way a dispute goes nowhere.

There is also a Table of Contents on the lower right of this page, and a side bar throughout the report that defines terms. Use them; the report is long and the pagination is not obvious.

Page 2 — Valuation Methodology

CCC's summary of its own method is that it "includes identifying the loss vehicle and configuring it, locating comparables and calculating the valuation."

That is worth holding on to, because it tells you the order things happened in. If the vehicle was configured wrongly — the wrong trim, missing equipment — then every comparable that follows was matched against the wrong car, and the condition argument later is beside the point.

Vehicle Details, History and Equipment

Vehicle Details lists location, VIN, year, make, model, trim, body style and type, engine, transmission and curb weight. Check the trim. Trim errors are quiet and expensive.

Vehicle Equipment marks each item as Standard — "included in the base configuration of the vehicle at the time of purchase" — or Additional, meaning "equipment that is not Standard but was noted to be on the loss vehicle."

This is where options go missing. If your car had a factory option that appears nowhere on this page, it was not part of the configuration the comparables were matched to, and it was not paid for. Compare it against your window sticker or a VIN decode.

Vehicle Condition — where the biggest single deduction lives

CCC describes this section in its own words:

lists the condition ratings of the loss vehicle selected by the appraiser, as well as the value impact based on the condition ratings

Inspection Notes reflect observations from the appraiser

The Total Condition Adjustments appear at the bottom of the section.

Two phrases there deserve attention.

Someone chose the rating. The condition grade is a human judgment entered into the software by the person who inspected your car, not a measurement the software made. It can be wrong, and it can be wrong without anyone acting in bad faith.

"Condition Rating terminology varies by company." CCC says so directly. There is no universal definition of "Fair" — your insurer configured what the grades mean. So asking what the grade required, and what would have been needed for the next one up, is a fair question with a real answer.

If the Inspection Notes are empty and no photographs support a deduction, that is the gap to point at. Several states require more than a grade.

Comparable Vehicles — three things worth knowing

This section identifies the vehicles used to set the base value, "up to three comparables listed per page" in the expanded format. Each carries its own adjustments, and at the end of the section the Adjusted Comparable Value is given — the figure after adjusting "for differences in make/model/trim, options, mileage to set the comparable to a common condition level."

Three definitions from CCC's own documentation change how you read this page.

The comparables may not be for sale any more. CCC states that comparables used to determine the Base Vehicle Value "are not intended to be replacement vehicles but are reflective of the market value and may no longer be available for sale."

That is a candid and important statement, and it sits awkwardly beside what several states require. California's rule speaks of a comparable that "must have been available for retail purchase by the general public in the local market area" within ninety days. New York requires a dealer-quote comparable to remain available for a period after notice. If a comparable on your report cannot be bought, that is worth raising in a state whose rule is written around availability.

Distance is measured in a straight line. CCC: "Distance is based upon a straight line between loss and comparable vehicle locations."

So a comparable listed at 48 miles may be considerably further by road. Where your state sets a numeric radius, it is worth knowing that the number on the report is not the number on your odometer.

How that compares with what your state actually permits is the whole question, and it is set out state by state in the comparable vehicles guide.

List Price and Take Price are different numbers. CCC defines List Price as "the sticker price of an inspected dealer vehicle and the advertised price for an advertised vehicle", and Take Price as "the amount that the dealership will accept to sell the inspected vehicle, though a lower price may be obtainable through negotiation."

If the valuation uses take prices, the comparables have already been discounted below their advertised price before any other adjustment. Check which figure was used, and be aware that CCC's own wording allows that even the take price may be negotiable downward — meaning the discount already applied is not the floor of what the market would do.

There may also be an Additional Comparable Vehicles section, listed in summary form but, CCC says, "adjusted the same as those in the previous section."

Valuation Notes

CCC describes this section as carrying:

any total loss request notes entered by the appraiser, as well as any notes generated by the system or Valuation staff

People skip it. Don't. It is the closest thing in the document to someone explaining their reasoning in their own words, and it occasionally says something that does not appear anywhere else.

The optional back sections

VINguard Vehicle History covers Experian Autocheck, NICB and NHTSA data, collision history, previous sales and title information — CCC notes it identifies things like "potential odometer rollbacks, prior potential total loss information or unrelated prior damage." NHTSA Vehicle Recall lists open recalls. Both are optional and may be absent.

If a prior-damage deduction was taken, this is where the evidence for it should be. If it is not here and not in the inspection notes, ask where it is.

What to check, in order

1. Trim and equipment. Wrong configuration invalidates everything downstream.
2. Each comparable: distance (straight line), mileage against yours, and whether it is still available if your state's rule turns on that.
3. Which price was used — list or take.
4. The condition rating, and whether inspection notes or photographs support it.
5. The settlement total, for whether sales tax and fees are there at all.

That is what the free audit does, and it does it against your own state's rule rather than in general.

A note on this guide

CCC's report is the insurer's document, not ours, and nothing above characterizes CCC's method as unfair. The three definitions singled out — availability, straight-line distance and take price — are CCC's own published descriptions of how the report works. They are here because each interacts with a state rule in a way that is easy to miss, not because any of them is improper.