Kentucky total-loss rules

The airbag carve-out is unusual and cuts both ways: (1)(d) excludes airbag reinstallation from the 75 percent test but still requires insurers to include those costs in the physical damage estimate, provided total payable costs do not exceed the vehicle's total retail value. So a car can stay below the salvage threshold while the insurer still pays for the airbags. Retail value is set by a nationally accepted used car valuation guide identified under KRS 304.20-110, which makes the denominator checkable. Kentucky also has an OWNER-RETAINED payment rule of the kind Ohio and Arizona have.

The 85-per-cent-of-makes-and-models-for-eight-model-years criterion is a real, checkable standard on the publication or database an insurer relies on, and one of the few in this ledger that constrains the SOURCE rather than only the output. The dealer-quotation route requires two or more quotes from qualified and licensed dealers — Kentucky is explicit that one quote is not enough.

Undefined 'local market area' places Kentucky with California, Tennessee, Minnesota and Louisiana — no distance a comparable can be said to fail. The count requirement is real but attaches to DEALER QUOTATIONS rather than to comparable vehicles, so it should not be cited as a minimum number of comps. Kentucky also gives a recourse right: under § 7(1)(c) the insurer must reopen the file if notified within 35 days of receipt of the settlement check that the insured cannot purchase a comparable vehicle for fair market value.

Recorded as an absence after reading § 7 for a delivery duty. The practical hook is § 5(3), which requires an appropriate reply within 15 days to a pertinent communication — so a written, dated request for the comparables carries its own clock even though no rule entitles you to the document. The 35-day recourse right at § 7(1)(c) is the more useful lever in Kentucky: it does not require you to prove the insurer's figure wrong, only that you cannot actually buy a comparable vehicle for it.

The license-fee qualifier is specific to Kentucky and worth reading closely: fees are owed only to the extent the Transportation Cabinet will NOT refund them, so an insurer declining to pay a license fee should be able to say which fees it says are refundable. Taxes themselves carry no such qualifier and no replacement condition.

Kentucky is one of the few states in this ledger to address refundability rather than simply naming fees, which avoids double recovery but also gives an insurer an argument. Ask which specific fees it treats as refundable.

Recorded as partial because the FIELD concerns a policy appraisal provision and the regulation contains none — § 7 was read for appraisal and umpire machinery and has neither. The 35-day recourse right is the functional substitute and is a strong one, mirroring California's, New Jersey's and Washington's: it turns on what you can actually buy rather than on whose valuation is better. Put the date you receive the check on your calendar.

READ THE DAY TYPE CAREFULLY — Kentucky mixes them, and this is the detail most likely to be got wrong. § 1(5) defines 'days' as Monday to Friday excluding holidays, so the 15-day clocks in § 5 run in WORKING days; but § 6 expressly says 'calendar days' for the 30- and 45-day clocks, overriding that default. The '15 working days' figure above is therefore a derivation across two sections — § 5(1) says 'within fifteen (15) days' and § 1(5) supplies the day type — not a phrase that appears verbatim in either. Counting the § 6 clocks as working days would overstate an insurer's time by roughly two weeks. Kentucky is also unusual in that § 6(1)(a) obliges an OFFER of payment within the same 30 days as the coverage decision, rather than leaving payment to a separate later clock.

The quote is from § 6(1)(a) of the regulation; KRS 304.12-230 itself was not read directly, so the statutory citation is recorded without a quote. Kentucky is notable for having recognized a private right of action for a violation of the Act, which is a materially different posture from states where only the regulator can act; that case law was not verified here and is flagged.

Ten years on a written contract executed after 15 July 2014 — the longest in the ledger alongside Illinois and Missouri. Note the two qualifiers in the text itself: the execution date, and 'unless otherwise provided by statute'. KRS Chapter 304 was not searched for an insurance-specific limitation provision, and a ten-year statutory period is exactly the situation where a shorter policy suit-limitation clause would matter most — read the policy.

Read on the Department's own page, which routes auto claims to the Division of Consumer Protection and offers a printable form alongside the online one. Kentucky requires a complaint in writing or electronically — verbal complaints are not accepted. Consumer hotline 800-595-6053; DOI.ConsumerComplaints@ky.gov; P.O. Box 517, Frankfort, KY 40602-0517. A tracking number is issued on submission.

The Department sits within the Public Protection Cabinet, which is why its consumer pages are served under a /ppc/ path. Auto claims go to the Division of Consumer Protection, which its own complaint page names.