The Nevada State Assembly Transportation Committee is considering a bill that would revise the formula by which a vehicle is considered a total loss.
Nevada Assembly Bill 368 proposes to increase the total-loss threshold from 65 percent to 80 percent. For a damaged vehicle to be considered a total loss, the actual or estimated cost of parts and labor required to repair the vehicle would have to be 80 percent or more of the vehicle’s retail value.
“Assembly Bill 368 provides cleanup language to a section in [Nevada Revised Statute] 487.790 that governs the provisions of a total-loss vehicle,” Assemblyman Paul Anderson, the bill’s primary sponsor, said during an April 4 committee hearing. He added that changes to the law in 2003 and 2011 “made it confusing to accurately and properly determine when a vehicle is considered a total loss, potentially putting unsafe cars on the roads.”
“The current system causes a lot of stress and confusion for both consumers and insurance professionals, and Assembly Bill 368 aims to simplify the language in the statute and certainly hoping to make roads safer for Nevadans,” Anderson said.
In addition to changing the total-loss threshold to 80 percent, Nevada AB 368 specifies that the percentage is of the retail value of the vehicle as opposed to the fair-market value. The bill provides requirements for how “retail value” and the costs of parts and labor are calculated for the purposes of applying the formula.
The bill also states that a vehicle is a total-loss vehicle if the owner obtains a salvage title as a result of the damage to the vehicle.
Watch the Transportation Committee and stakeholders discuss the bill:
