You're cruising along in your car, minding your own business and the unexpected and unthinkable happens: another car hits you (or you hit something else) and your car is a total wreck. If you have comprehensive and/or collision insurance, you have at least two blessings to count: you're alive and your policy may cover the cost of replacing your vehicle. But settling the claim can pose some questions. Understanding your options for a totaled car can help make the financial aftermath of the accident as hassle-free as possible.

Insurance companies will usually consider a car to be a total loss if the cost to repair it goes over a certain percentage of the car's value. This percentage can vary from insurer to insurer, but generally, if the repair is estimated to cost more than two-thirds of the vehicle's value, then it is deemed totaled. Determining the value of expensive and exotic vehicles, like foreign sports cars, can be contentious but there are appraisal methods used by insurers that would be agreeable to customers.

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What you can get for your totaled car depends on several things. First is the need to determine the value of your car. Your insurer will consider several benchmarks to do this, such as the Kelley Blue Book, the length of time you've been using your car and its mileage, and newspaper advertisements. Once the car's value has been determined (and keep in mind that this is not original price of the vehicle because of depreciation) your insurance company will remit payment. If you were the at-fault driver, your deductible will be removed from the payment, but if you didn't cause the accident, then no deductible will be taken from you.

There are owners who want to keep their car anyway and have it repaired even if it is written off as a total wreck by the insurer. In these cases, the vehicle's salvage amount is deducted from the claim to be settled and the owner gets to keep the car. He/she may opt to have the car repaired at body shops that specialize in wrecks. Sometimes insurance companies will agree to pay for such repairs, but this agreement is contingent upon the terms of insurance and a consensus among all the parties involved: the repair shop, the insurer, the damage appraiser, and the customer.

Understanding your options for a totaled car is important even though you are not expecting such an accident to happen. But being prepared would certainly ease the pain and inconvenience of losing your car and it would help ensure that you get back on the road again as soon as possible either with your replacement or repaired car.

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