Last Thursday my “total loss insurance adjuster” called with the initial insurance offer on my Nova. The offer was a small fraction of its actual value, so I rejected it out of hand.
That evening, I emailed the adjuster about 16MB worth of documents: pictures, receipts for all improvements since 1995, and a spreadsheet of “just maintenance” since 1996. I also sent nine ads for comparable Novas, several of which were above $8,000. And I sent her a completed eBay auction for a ’74 Nova that sold for the insurance company’s initial offering price. That thing was a incomplete rust bucket project that had been ragged out with heavy racing use, has mismatched finders, old paint, shoddy interior, missing parts, and a questionable engine and transmission. That was a far cry from my Nova’s condition.
A different adjuster admitted that this was some kind of standard valuation produced with an unnamed program, and he tacitly acknowledged that it’s inaccurate because so few Novas are sold.