Diminished value claims in Mississippi

Claims against the at-fault driver

In Ishee v. Dukes Ford Co. (1980), the Mississippi Supreme Court allowed the cost of repairing a damaged vehicle plus the loss in value remaining after repair. For property held for sale rather than personal use, it capped the repair cost at the total loss in value.

In Thomas v. Global Boat Builders (1986), the court again allowed recovery for remaining lost value, but doubted that an owner's own testimony alone could prove it. In Regency Nissan v. Jenkins (1995), the court suggested an owner should be able to testify to the value of their own property.

Claims under your own policy

Older Mississippi Supreme Court decisions on auto policies held that if a loss in market value remains despite repairs, that loss is added to the repair cost, so the measure is the car's value just before the crash compared with its value after all reasonable repairs (Potomac Insurance Co. v. Wilkinson, 1952; Calvert Fire Insurance Co. v. Newman, 1960).

Policy wording has changed since then, and many current policies limit coverage to repair or replacement. The wording of your own policy controls.

Filing deadline

Mississippi's general statute of limitations gives three years after the cause of action accrues for actions without another prescribed period (Miss. Code 15-1-49).

That is the deadline for filing suit. A Mississippi attorney can confirm how it applies to your dates.

How diminished value claims tend to go in Mississippi

Because Mississippi decisions have questioned whether an owner's word alone proves the drop in value, written market evidence from someone who prices cars for a living tends to carry more weight than the owner's estimate.

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 Mississippi Insurance Department's Consumer Services Division takes complaints about how an insurer handled a claim, online or on a printed form. File with the Mississippi Insurance Department.

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 Louisiana
• Diminished value claims in South Carolina
• Diminished value rules in every state