CCC Crash Course looks at changing consumer claims practices
Affordability challenges are making consumers treat lower-severity claims as optional purchases, a new CCC Crash Course report says.
As smaller claims decrease within first-party coverages, the severity mix is reshaping, the report says. This follows decisions by consumers to opt for higher deductibles and coverage downgrades.
Another change is a 16.1% reduction in comprehensive volumes in 2025, based on CCC data. That made up about 40% of the overall volume variance, with collision accounting for 50%.
The removal of comprehensive claims from the overall claims mix reduced the volume by 5.7%, the report says.
Comprehensive volume is generally unpredictable because it is often due to weather or happenstance, such as fire, theft, vandalism, flooding, animal strikes, or falling objects.
Three common causes of losses that accounted for the 2025 results include a decline in severe convective storms or hail events, a national decline in vehicle thefts, and an Atlantic Hurricane season that avoided the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast.
The report points to ISS Fast Track data showing all three major physical damage coverages — collision, comprehensive, and property damage/liability — have continually declined in frequency or paid claim volume relative to exposure volume.
Fast track first-party collision and comprehensive paid severity, including both repairable and total loss, have eased slightly in recent quarters, while damage paid claims severity has slowly climbed after plateauing in mid-2024.
CCC also found increases in the weighted average of repairable and total loss claims that outpaced the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for motor vehicle insurance until the first quarter of 2024.
“Though not a perfect correlation — as frequency is not considered — this is yet another view that reflects the time and rate required on the insurance carrier side,” CCC says.
Total loss valuations decreased by 2.9%, while non-comp valuations were down only 0.2%, the report says. The share of total loss claims also increased by 0.8 percentage points to 23% across all loss categories. At the same time, non-comprehensive claims for total loss increased by 1 percentage point to 23.9%.
“This represents a new high watermark for the industry, while being mindful that this ratio is being affected by claim-filing behaviors,” the report says.
The mix of 7- to 12-year-old vehicles has increased to about 41% for valuations in 2025, up from 33.4% in 2020. The share of 1- to 6-year-old vehicles declined by 7.7% to 25.4% in 2025.
Yet, the share of 1- to 3-year-old vehicles increased in 2025.
As vehicles get older, the probability of a total loss increases, the report says. One in 10 vehicles three years old or newer is flagged as a total loss by the insurer, the report says.
Drivable total losses have also been increasing since 2021, the report says. Drivable total loss vehicles have increased at a rate higher than the overall share of drivable claims, the report says.
For example, drivable claims are up 3.5% compared to 2021, while drivable total losses are up 4.2%.
“The increasing share of driveable total losses reflects one of the most challenging paradigms in claims at present, especially when considering the aging vehicle fleet,” the release says. “Consumers opting to retain damaged driveable vehicles are likely doing so given the costs associated with replacing a vehicle.”
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