I received a report today from CCC that showed staff appraisers totaling cars at 3X the rate of repairers (18.8% vs 6.2%). And that doesn't count something called an "obvious total loss." What's that about? Do they look at different cars or do they look at similar cars differently (that's my guess).

Someone brighter than I summed it up for me - "If all other factors, such as severity, etc., are the same, then it would appear that staff appraisers are operating in the manner of a small claims judge. Going for the simplest solution that will not result in further debate or negotiations and fixed dollar amount determined early on. Simple drive-by shooting. I agree, in many cases if the shop knows where the tipping point is and wants the job, they should be able to finesse the estimate whereas the staff appraiser is less likely to have any vested interest in saving vs. totaling. Plus I would imagine the staff appraiser's work is less likely to be accepted by all other parties (vehicle owner/insured/claimant, repair shop, etc) without multiple attempts at modification at any point in the process, with or without warning."

This is US data and perhaps a US perspective. Does anyone know if Canadian data is similar? Can we draw the conclusion that if we had repairers flagging vehicles for total losses that we would have fewer totals, and therefore more work in the industry?