CIC shares total loss trends to watch and customer sentiment on vehicle purchase after loss

Data shared during the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) meeting held last week might help explain why many in the industry have noticed a decrease in claim volume, particularly in the last six to nine months, according to Dan Risley.

Risley, CIC chairman and vice president of quality repair and market development for CCC, said non-comprehensive and all loss category total losses have increased significantly over the last six quarters.

“We’re kind of returning back to normal,” Risley said. “What is the new norm? We’re looking at, with Q1 2025, almost 24% of non-comp losses resulted in a total loss… The ones that are concerning to me, it’s really timely for us as you look at 2024 Q4 and 2025 Q1, we’re at 24.3% and 23.7%, so this is definitely something that we as an industry should be keeping our eye on.”

“When you break non-drives, 53% result in a total loss,” Risley said. “We’ve had almost a 50% increase in total losses on drivable vehicles in the last three years… We’re seeing a pretty stair-step case of increased number of total losses on the drivable vehicle side of the house.”

“We’ve seen an increase starting with 2021/2022, where we went from 6% and 7% to almost 10% of newer model vehicles resulting in a total loss,” Risley said. “Now those are high watermarks for us… You see a pretty significant jump back up after COVID, but we’re at 32% on vehicles that are seven years and older. I think that’s the number that we as an industry need to watch real close because… that 7-year-old vehicle right now is a 2018.

Liz Stein

“How many ADAS features are on 2018 and older? Not many. As that continues to play out in our car parc that has a lot of ADAS features, and starts to slide over into the seven years and older category, what impact will that have on total loss?”

CIC’s Insurer-Repairer Relations Task Force presented later during the meeting that the scales may be tipped toward switching vehicle brand or type for some consumers, especially if they experience a total loss.

Task Force Co-Chair Liz Stein noted that Deloitte’s 2025 Global Automotive Consumer Study found that the percentage of U.S. consumers switching brands increased by 3% from 2024 to 54%.

“We already have a finicky consumer that may be willing to switch owning a vehicle or switching brands if you have a total loss, which is sometimes a traumatic event,” Stein said. “We’re seeing a switch from consumers buying just one type of vehicle to buying multiple brands of vehicles, and that’s because what’s influencing them is they have more options than ever before.

“The features within those vehicles are more prevalent. Before we were seeing, ‘I want the horsepower and I want durability,’ but now we’re seeing ‘What’s the safety features look like? What’s the miles? How much am I going to spend in gas, or is there an electric option?'”

Paul Samuelson

According to data provided to the task force by LexisNexis, total losses reached 29% last year, up 9% from 2019, Stein said.

Paul Samuelson, with Nissan North America, added that a third of the OEM’s customers defect after a total loss.

“Then you see total losses increasing tremendously, it is bad news for us as an OE,” he said. “We want to make sure that we somehow mitigate that. It’s a complex situation for all of us in the industry. It’s something we are definitely concerned about and looking at.”

Samuelson added that after hitting a deer recently in his new Ultima, which had only 2,000 miles on it, damages were expected to be $8,000 according to Nissan’s certified collision website. When he took it to a certified shop the next day, the estimate was $29,000, leading to a total loss.

“I’m in the industry, I know how to deal with all that, but it was a tremendously traumatic thing,” he said. “My son would’ve had no idea what to do. My wife would’ve had no idea what to do. That’s a terrible situation.”

From a collision repair shop perspective, Kris Burton, with Rosslyn Auto Body, said he sees many of his customers switching brands and fuel types; sometimes from ICE vehicles to EVs, then back to ICE.

“This is something that’s an industry-wide problem,” he said. “Also, if you’re a paint company, you’re probably also thinking about that. You’re selling less paint because you can’t paint a vehicle that’s not being repaired… I think all of us are scratching our heads, working to address.”

Kris Burton

According to Risley’s data, the average adjusted value of total losses on vehicles that are seven years or older is about $9,000.

“What’s going to happen to that vehicle seven years from now? Because you think about all the ADAS features on those vehicles, they’re not inexpensive,” he said. “They have sensors, they have cameras… That could result in more total losses.

“What is the cost of a sensor or a camera right now in a vehicle? I mean, you’re going to get to a total loss threshold pretty quickly as these vehicles start to age out, unless that ACV of that vehicle goes up as a result of ADAS features. It’s possible that the return on these salvage vehicles could go up.”

Risley noted that, within that age group, total loss volume for non-comprehensive losses increased from 64.7% in 2020 to 74% as of Q1 2025.

“One to three years old and four to six years old have shrunk over the last couple of years,” Risley said. “I don’t want to blame everything on COVID, but we all know that during COVID, there wasn’t a lot of new vehicle sales. There wasn’t a lot of availability, so people were buying more used cars, thus the car parc we have in the U.S. is going to reflect more of those older model vehicles until such time that the American consumer is getting us back to those pre-COVID levels.”

Nissan’s data shows the total loss percentage for hybrid and electric vehicles is a bit higher; however, over the last couple of years, hybrids have increasingly totaled more quickly than EVs and ICE vehicles, according to Samuelson.

The committee concluded the following steps shops can take to help their customers:

• • Cultivate and/or strengthen relationships with dealers to offer total loss customers help in finding a replacement vehicle
  • Pilot OE programs
  • Always have empathy for the consumer

“We need to start listening and realizing that for the consumer, this is a new thing for them to navigate this accident,” Stein said. “[This] may be the first accident they’ve ever had. Maybe them totaling this vehicle makes them stressed. Maybe they had to get to their kids’ appointments, and they’re thinking ‘What a disruption.’ Could you help them figure out a solution that’s better for that day?”

Images

CIC Chairman Dan Risley speaks during the July 23, 2025, meeting in Philadelphia. (Lurah Lowery/Repairer Driven News)

All slides/graphs provided by CIC and CCC