Well if that’s the case then they could make that claim on any insurance payment. You still own the vehicle, all you’re doing is filing an insurance claim just like you got a door ding. Difference is your filling (or attempting) a big claim. They’ll look at it, and say this things totaled and only worth a few dollars. And that’s what they’ll pay, but it’s not a transfer payment, it’s an insurance payment that they have to pay because you’ve been paying them (despite only briefly on this rig) to cover stuff like this. Where the fun begins is bickering about how much it’s worth. That’ll take some inspection on your part, and if there are salvageable parts you have a lot of Mud data on the value of those parts. Or you can take the $5 they’ll try and give you, put $Xk into making it driveable (and legal), head to the state patrol, get an inspection, give them $X (for a Mazda 929 fifteen years ago that was about $90) and they’ll give you (mail it actually a few weeks later) a salvage title. When you go to sell it 25yrs from now, you’ll have to convince any buyers that the salvage title is no big deal - which it isn’t for this class of vehicle. You own the rig, not the insurance company.
