Calculator
What you actually pay when a carrier pays the rest
Enter a repair total and your deductible and this separates what the carrier settles from what you owe the shop, including betterment and any work you add that the claim does not cover. The deductible is owed to the shop, not to the carrier.
The deductible is owed to the shop
The most common misunderstanding on a first claim is that the deductible is a payment to the insurer. It is not. The carrier subtracts it from the settlement and pays the balance, which means the shop is short by exactly that amount and collects it from the owner at delivery. Nobody sends the insurer a cheque.
That matters for planning, because it lands at the end of the repair rather than the start. An owner who has budgeted for the deductible on day zero and spent it by day twenty has a problem the shop cannot solve, since the vehicle cannot be released against an unpaid balance.
Betterment, and why it is not a penalty
When a repair replaces a worn item with a new one, the carrier may pay only part of the cost and charge the owner the difference. A twelve year old roof membrane replaced after hail is the standard case. The logic is that the owner ends up with something worth more than what was lost, and insurance restores value rather than improving it.
The argument worth having is not whether betterment is legitimate but what service life the carrier assumed. A roof written down as fully depreciated when it had years left is a number somebody chose, and the owner is entitled to ask where it came from. That question is answerable; the principle generally is not.
The work you add while the vehicle is already open
Most repairs grow, and not all of the growth is the carrier's. If a wall is open for a covered collision repair and the owner asks for cabinetry work while it is accessible, that second scope is theirs. It is usually the cheapest time to do it, because the teardown labour has already been paid for once.
Keeping the two scopes separated on paper protects everyone. The claim file stays clean, the carrier is not asked to fund an improvement, and the owner can see exactly what they chose to spend against what the loss required. A shop that blends them is making both harder to defend later.
How deposits interact with a settlement
Deposits are taken on authorisation over $2,000 and again when parts arrive on orders over $10,000. On a claim funded repair the deposit is normally satisfied by the carrier's first payment rather than by the owner, but the timing depends on when that payment clears. Where a carrier is slow, the shop and the owner have to agree who is carrying the gap, and that is a conversation worth having before parts are ordered rather than after.
Run the arithmetic
It cannot tell you what your carrier will approve. It shows the arithmetic once an approved number exists.
The approved figure, parts and labour.
Leave at zero if none was applied.
Leave at zero if none.
Enter a figure above and the arithmetic appears here.
It cannot tell you what your carrier will approve. It shows the arithmetic once an approved number exists. Nothing you type here is sent anywhere: the rates are built into the page and the arithmetic runs in your browser. This is not an estimate and it is not a quote.
Related
Questions about this
What will I actually pay out of pocket on a covered repair?
Your deductible, plus anything the carrier declines, plus any betterment they apply, plus tax on the parts and materials in the declined portion. Nothing else. A $12,000 authorised repair on a policy with a $1,000 deductible costs you $1,000 if the scope is accepted in full. The figure grows when the carrier refuses a blend panel, applies depreciation to a membrane, or declines a modification that was never documented before the loss.
Does paying by card change what I owe?
Above $1,000, yes. A 3.5 percent surcharge applies to card payments over $1,000, which passes through the merchant fee on high ticket work rather than absorbing it into everyone's labour rate. On a $10,000 balance that is $350, so on large jobs most owners settle by cheque or transfer and keep the card for the smaller portion. Under $1,000 there is no surcharge at all.