Diminished value claims in Indiana

Claims against the at-fault driver

Indiana courts follow the Restatement (Second) of Torts rule for damaged personal property. In Wiese-GMC, Inc. v. Wells (1993), the Court of Appeals called the reduction in fair market value caused by the other driver's negligence the fundamental measure of damages.

Dado v. Jeeninga (2001) applied that rule to the value a car still lacks after it has been repaired, because it has been in an accident. In Shield Global Partners-G1 v. Forster (2020), the Court of Appeals held that an owner can recover both the cost of repair and that remaining lost value, with evidence of the car's fair market value after repair.

Claims under your own policy

In Allgood v. Meridian Security Insurance Co. (2005), the Indiana Supreme Court held that a standard collision policy did not require the insurer to pay lost value on top of repair.

Uninsured motorist coverage is different. The same day, in Dunn v. Meridian Mutual Insurance Co. (2005), the court held that because uninsured motorist coverage pays what the uninsured driver would have owed, it includes the lost value that driver would have been liable for.

Filing deadline

Indiana gives two years to file an action for injury to personal property (Ind. Code 34-11-2-4).

That is the deadline for filing suit. Talking with an insurer does not by itself extend it. An Indiana attorney can confirm how it applies to your dates.

How diminished value claims tend to go in Indiana

Expect a collision-coverage request to be answered with Allgood, an uninsured motorist request to be measured against Dunn, and a request to the other driver's insurer to turn on proof of the car's value after repair, as in Shield Global Partners.

Many insurers answer a diminished value request with a formula rather than a market study. The best known is the 17c formula, which came out of the Georgia class actions over first-party claims that followed State Farm v. Mabry; its name comes from paragraph 17(c) of an injunction in one of them. It starts from a capped share of the car's value before the crash, then reduces it with damage and mileage modifiers. A law-firm survey notes it was built for that class action and has not been formally adopted for general use.

Adjusters commonly ask for proof that the repaired car is worth less, not only proof that it was damaged. Records that tend to matter: the final repair invoice and photos, the estimate showing any structural or frame work, the vehicle history report entry, and written market evidence such as dealer quotes or listings for the same car with and without an accident history.

Lost value is easiest to show once repairs are finished, because the value after repair is what gets compared with the value before the crash.

If you have a complaint about claim handling

The Indiana Department of Insurance's Consumer Services Division takes written complaints about how an insurer handled a claim. File with the Indiana Department of Insurance.

Next steps

• How Reclaim's diminished-value check works
• Estimate a figure with the diminished value calculator
• How to file a diminished value claim
• Diminished value claims in Ohio
• Diminished value claims in Michigan
• Diminished value rules in every state