Car totaled-buy back options

[99WhiteBeast]

A hypothethical situation I need some knowledge on for those that may have been through this.

If a car is considered totaled by insurance company and owner decides to buy the car back what happens?

Is title noted as salvaged?
I assume a settlement amount is decided on ( the cost of the car minus the buy back amount)?
Is the buy back amount typically what a salvage yard will pay for the vehicle?

Is the buy back amount negotiable?

[PoorSvtman]

all i know is a few years ago a friend hit a car with his 89 chevy 1500. He bought it back for 800 bucks and he bought a new radiator, hood, headlights,grill and raidaitor support it was good as new after the macco paint job. Then it got stolen from best buy a 2weeks after getting painted.

[SILVER2000SVT]

I looked into this option when I wrecked my Dakota 3 years ago. A quick answer to your third question is "no". They were going to give me $18000 for my totaled truck. I asked how much to buy it back and they told me $8000 (so they would only give me $10000 plus the wrecked truck). I got to checking around and found out that the truck was only expected to get $3500 tops at the auction.

I tried, and they didn't give me any impression that the buy back was negotiable. That was with State Farm, I don't know if other companies would be different.

If the insurance decides to total it and pay you off the title will be a salvage title. However if it's only on the verge of being totaled and you want to buy it back, you might be able to negotiate with them and they might be willing to let you fix it and not total it. I doubt they could do this if you still owed money and the lien holder needed to be payed off first.

[QDRHRSE]

It depends. They wil usually sell it back. Yes, it will have a salvage title.

[Wht95Lightning]

This happened to me 2 years ago with the Wife's Infiniti.
There was a hail storm and it beat the livin' daylights out of the car including breaking every piece of glass.
Anyway, The insurance company replaced all the glass immediately and we drove it around beat up for a few days waiting for "our appointment" at the body shop. Once it was in the body shop and an adjuster actually saw the car he said it was a total loss.
They gave me two options. 1) they take the car away and hand me a check or 2) I keep the car, reduce the insurance to liability only and they write me a smaller check.
I took the money, kept the car for another 4 months while we decided what to replace it with and traded it in with many many hail dents and a CLEAR title.

[L8 APEX]

Customer with a L totaled it and bought it back for salvage value 3K which is pretty accurate. Brown title once it is processed by an insurance company. The only way to keep the title clear is not to file a claim. the buy back value is market value in most cases no special bargain.