Is Kelley Blue Book A Reliable Method for Researching Diminished Value?

September 30, 2018By Justin Petty

Recently, I had a case where an adjuster was negotiating an inherent lost market value claim based on values and condition descriptions found in Kelley Blue Book.

The amount of inherent lost value, or diminished value or DV as it is common to call it, that the adjuster was willing to pay was about $4000 less than what my research and opinion came out to.

Obviously, I argued that KBB was not accurate.

Naturally, the adjuster requested a synopsis on why I believed that using Kelley Blue Book was not a reliable method for researching diminished value.

I happily obliged the adjuster.

Want to read more about why using Kelley Blue Book (or any other online valuation guide) to calculate diminished value is a severely lacking and inaccurate method?

Diminished Value and Kelley Blue Book

September 13, 2013By Justin Petty No Comments

Recently, I had a case where an adjuster was negotiating an inherent lost market value claim based on values and condition descriptions found in Kelley Blue Book.  The amount of inherent lost value that the adjuster was willing to pay was about $4k less than what my research and opinion came out to.  Obviously, I argued that Kelley was not accurate, and naturally, the adjuster requested a synopsis on why I believed that using Kelley Blue Book was not a reliable method for researching inherent lost market value, or DV as it is becoming common to call it (diminished value).

I happily obliged the adjuster, and here in this blog entry, I will re-cap why I think using Kelley Blue Book (or any other online valuation guide) to calculate DV is a severely lacking and inaccurate method.

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