Not covered here
Auto Total Loss Report Templates: Why a Word File Adds Nothing
Auto total-loss valuation is a prescribed method producing a system output, not a narrative report. What NAIC Model 902 §8 actually requires, and why public adjusters are excluded from the line entirely.
The short answer
Auto is declined here for a different reason than workers' compensation. There is no regulator-issued form standing in the way. There is simply no prose worth templating: the central document on a first-party auto total loss is a valuation, and a valuation is a calculation with a prescribed method, not an argument someone writes.
That is not a complaint about the line. It is what the regulation is designed to produce — a number a reader can check, reached by a route that was fixed in advance. A Word template cannot improve a number.
What follows is what the method actually requires, because it is more specific than most people expect, and knowing it is worth more than any template would be.
The model regulation prescribes method, not narrative
NAIC Model 902 §8(A) sets out how a first-party total loss is settled where the policy pays actual cash value or replacement with another of like kind and quality, and it gives the insurer a closed set of routes.
One is to offer a replacement vehicle — same manufacturer, same or newer year, similar body style, similar options and mileage, in as good or better overall condition, available for inspection at a licensed dealer within a reasonable distance of the insured's residence, with all taxes and transfer fees paid. The offer and any rejection of it must be documented in the claim file.
The other is a cash settlement derived from the cost of two or more comparable vehicles in the local market area, available now or within the last ninety days; or from comparables in proximate areas including the closest major metropolitan area, where the local market has none; or from quotations obtained from two or more licensed dealers in the local market area, where neither of the first two routes is available.
Notice what that is: a decision tree with documentation requirements at each node. The output is a figure and the evidence for it. There is no section in which the adjuster explains their reasoning, because the reasoning was specified before the claim arose.
The fourth route is a specification for a software product
Model 902 §8(A)(2)(d) allows any source for determining statistically valid fair market values that meets stated criteria. The second of those criteria is quoted here because it is unusually concrete: the source's database shall produce values for at least eighty-five percent (85%) of all makes and models for the last fifteen (15) model years, taking into account the values of all major options for such vehicles.
The source must also give primary consideration to vehicles in the local market area, and produce values based on current data from the area surrounding where the insured vehicle was principally garaged.
Read that as a requirements document and it describes the valuation systems the industry already runs on. The regulation did not leave a gap for a template; it wrote a product specification, and vendors filled it. A Word file offering to help someone write up a total loss is competing with a database it cannot approximate.
Public adjusters are excluded from the line by name
The most document-hungry audience in claims is the public adjuster, and on auto they are not permitted to act at all. The NAIC Public Adjuster Licensing Model Act states in its scope, at Section 1, that it limits licensure to assisting insureds in first party claims, excluding claims for personal or commercial auto lines of insurance.
Worth being precise, since the Act is easy to misread: the Section 2 definition describes a public adjuster as acting solely in relation to first-party claims on contracts insuring the real or personal property of the insured, and a car is personal property. The auto exclusion is in the scope statement, not the definition. Cite Section 1.
So the readership that would most value a template on this line legally cannot use one.
Where to go instead
If you are disputing a total-loss valuation
Work the method rather than the prose. Ask which of the four routes in Model 902 §8(A)(2) was used, and then test that route on its own terms: were there two or more comparables, were they in the local market area, were they available within ninety days, and if a database was used, does it meet the 85%-of-makes-and-models-over-fifteen-model-years criterion. Your state's adopted version governs, and it may differ from the model — the model is a drafting template for legislatures and binds nobody by itself.
If you need the claim file documented rather than the vehicle valued
That part does transfer. Model 902 §8(A)(1) requires the replacement offer and any rejection to be documented, and general file-documentation standards apply to an auto file like any other. The documents in this library that are line-neutral will serve.
What this library does cover
The claim diary and activity log is line-neutral and covers the documentation requirement above.
If the loss is first-party property rather than auto, start at the captioned report.
Questions
- What about auto liability, not total loss?
- That is casualty, and it is declined separately — see the casualty page. The reasoning is different: there the writing is genuinely substantial, and the problem is that it sits close to attorney work product.
- Does Model 902 §8 apply in my state?
- Only to the extent your state adopted it. NAIC models are drafting templates for state legislatures and bind nowhere on their own. Find your state's adopted provision and read that; the model tells you what to look for and what the standard usually contains, which is why it is worth knowing.
- I am a public adjuster and I handle auto claims in my state. Is the model wrong?
- The model excludes auto; your state's own act may not, and a handful depart from the model here. The model states the general position, not your licence. Check the act your licence issues under.