What happens when your car is totaled?

When your car is totaled it basically amounts to you get yourself into an accident, the amount of the damage exceeds the value of the car.

For example, you are driving around in an 80′s series Ford Escort and you end up smacking yourself into a tree and there is $4,000 worth of body damage on to it and the car is only worth $1,200. That would be a good indication of when they would total your car.

If you have a newer car you get yourself into an accident, the insurance company will typically send an appraiser out to estimate the damage on the car and if it exceeds the amount that the car is worth then they obviously total it and it gets sent to a scrap yard and it stays there for a while.

Most insurance companies have their own yards and after that it gets sent to a salvage yard and basically gets taken apart for parts.

That is usually what happens when your car is totaled and a simple way to sum up how your car is totaled.