It sounds like you want them to total the car. Failing that maybe you can get more out of them with a diminished value claim.
I am going through this with my car. I was in an accident last year in which a semi decided he liked my lane better than his… he was bigger so he won. My car had only very minor damage done to it and was easily fixed, but it still had to be reported to the state of California and that minor accident will probably now show up on a carfax that is run against it. We all know there is a stigma attached to a car that has been in an accident, period. One car in an accident, one not; which would you choose? Now make that car that you’re looking at a Saleen.
Diminished value is one of those topics that the insurance companies would like to sweep under the rug and forget about but it is real. They are fighting it as much as they can but they are losing. Courts are now siding with the consumer in many of these cases. In a resent California court case, the Judge found for the plaintiff and basically stated (paraphrasing a little here) “diminished value is not a physical loss but a perceived loss. The cost of a physical repair has no bearing on the loss of diminished value.”
That last part is really important. The other guys insurance company said ‘You have a $4,000 dollar repair and you want $4,000 in diminished value?” You’re damn right I do.
I’ve spoken to a very good lawyer on this and you can win, but you have a lot of work to do before something like this makes it to court. You have to provide them as much information as possible on the car, the value of the car before the accident, get professional appraisals done on the car now, get statements from dealerships about how much they knock off the value on a trade-in that has been in an accident, etc., etc. etc. You have to give this insurance company this information and then give them the opportunity to do the right thing. If they don’t, then you can file a suite against them for bad faith. More then likely though they will offer you a settlement.
Of course, the above is what I’ve found in the state of California, your state might be different.