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How this site works, and where it stops

Where do the quotes come from?

Only from official pages: a state legislature’s or code publisher’s own statute site, a state administrative code, or a state agency’s own page, manual or form. Nothing comes from a law-firm chart, an insurance blog, a commercial code host or memory. Where the only readable source was an agency page that restates a statute, the state’s page says so.

This edition of the site prints 354 quotations (sentences, list items and headings) from 127 official pages across 48 states.

How are the quotes checked?

A script requests every source page the plain way, with a user-agent that names this site, turns the page into text and looks for every quote word for word (letter case, spacing, and curly or straight punctuation aside). If a page fails to load or a quote is missing, the whole check fails and the site is not rebuilt. There is one exception: two state sites answer a plain request on some days and refuse it on others. When one of those refuses, that state is left out of the site until a later check reads it, and its page says so. The last full check ran on November 11, 2026; that is the “read” date beside every quote.

A quote carries a year or an effective date only where the quoted words print it. Everything else carries the date we read it.

How does the tool decide what to compute?

Each state’s rule is filed under one kind, and the tool does only what that kind of sentence describes:

• Percentage. The cost or damage figure is divided by the value figure and set against the percentage in the quote. The number must be printed in the quote, and a test fails the build if it is not.
• Repair cost against value. The quote prints no percentage. The cost figure is set against the value figure itself.
• Formula with salvage value. The cost figure and the salvage figure are added and set against the value figure.
• Wording, no sum to do. We do not compute a money comparison from the quotation. The tool shows it and computes nothing. That includes a sentence that prints a percentage without naming the amount it measures.

The word in front of the number is read from the quote. “Exceeds”, “more than” and “in excess of” are met only above the number. “Or more”, “at least” and “equals or exceeds” are met at the number too. When your figures land exactly on the number, the tool says which wording the quote uses.

Amounts are handled as whole cents, so no rounding decides which side of a threshold a figure falls on. The percentage shown is cut off, never rounded up, after as few decimal places as keep it on the true side of every quoted figure.

The tool has two boxes, and under each it prints the quote’s own words for that amount: the cost of repair in one state, “damage” in another; fair market value in one, replacement cost in another. What you type should be the amount those words name. The tool cannot check that it is.

Where the quote the tool computes from is not the state’s whole definition, the state’s other definition sentences are shown under it, including sentences that limit which vehicles or costs count.

What does the tool leave out?

• It does not know the vehicle’s age, type or insurer, and it does not check whether a quoted sentence covers them. The quotes say what they cover in their own words.
• It does not value a vehicle. The value and the repair estimate come from the insurer and the policy.
• It does not report a claim outcome. Insurers may total a vehicle below a statutory threshold.
• It makes no network request and stores nothing. The figures stay in the page until it is closed.

Which official pages could we not read?

A page that refuses a plain request is recorded and left alone. We do not work around a refusal. Each of these was asked for again by the last check and still did not open:

• Arizona Department of Transportation, salvage and restored salvage titles: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• California Vehicle Code section 544 on the Legislature’s code site: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles, salvage vehicles: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• Hawaii Revised Statutes section 286-48 on the Legislature’s site: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• Illinois Secretary of State, salvage titles: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• Indiana Code Title 9, Article 22 on the General Assembly’s site: on November 11, 2026 it sent back a page with no statute text in it.
• Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles, salvage titles: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• Mass.gov, apply for a salvage inspection: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• Michigan Department of State, salvage vehicles: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• Montana Department of Justice, vehicle title and registration: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles, salvage and rebuilt vehicles: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• New Mexico Statutes chapter 66 on NMOneSource: on November 11, 2026 it sent back a page with no statute text in it.
• New York Vehicle and Traffic Law section 429 on the State Senate’s site: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes Title 75, section 102 on the General Assembly’s site: on November 11, 2026 it sent back a page with no statute text in it.
• Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles, salvage titles: on November 11, 2026 it refused our plain request.
• Texas Transportation Code chapter 501 on the Legislature’s statutes site: on November 11, 2026 it sent back a page with no statute text in it.

Hawaii and Tennessee are left out because we could not read an official source; their pages say so. Several state codes are hosted by a commercial publisher; we did not request those, and the state’s page says where its quotes come from instead.

What is not covered?

The District of Columbia and the territories were not researched. We did not collect sentences specific to motorcycles, trailers, mobile homes or commercial trucks. We did not read or quote insurance regulations about how a claim is valued.

Corrections

Spot a quote that has changed at its source, a broken link, or an official page we missed? Email hello@totallossthreshold.com with the state and a link to the official page. We fix verified errors. We cannot answer questions about a claim or a particular vehicle.