Leased Kia Totaled Insurance more than payoff

Ask the Hackrs Insurance
1

My leased Kia was totaled the insurance is willing to pay more than the payoff and remaining lease payments, what happens to the overage amount?

2

The owner of the car keeps the equity, in your case it’s the leasing company

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3

should be in your lease agreement. it depends on the leasing company. in theory, insurance proceeds go to the title holder of the vehicle, which is the leasing company.

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4

Im in a similar situation, curious if i could buy the car before the insurance settles? In my case the leasing company is getting $6k that i would like to have instead…

5

Thos wouldnt entitle you to the settlement and would open you up to other issues… like ending up without any insurance momey and owning a dminished value vehicle.

6

not worth the risk imo.

7

My leased 2021 Honda Crv got stolen. The payoff amount was 8K more than what the insurance value my vehicle at. Geico paid off Honda Financial and sent me 8K.

I also work for an insurance company and I always tell customers that if they have equity, either we send them the difference or the leasing company does.

I would ask your insurance company to send you the difference in equity because if they send it to the leasing company you are going have to wait weeks/months for them to send you the difference.

8

Thanks all, I appreciate the information here and help! I figured the way I was thinking about it was a bad idea, but wanted to confirm.

I will work with the insurance company directly

9

This might be state-specific. Not all states have regulations that protect the consumer in this instance

10

Unless you’re in one of those situations where the lessor is contractually entitled to the insurance overage.

11

Going through the same, Jeep considered total loss. Check went to Ally, with about 6K in overage/equity.
In the future, when I’m applying for auto insurance, when asked for claims history, the amount will be the amount paid to Ally. If I’m being scrutinized for the total amount paid out, then I would rather the amount be the amount owed for the car, not the value of the car. Does that make sense?
I do get it (reluctantly) that the leasing company owns the car, so the equity is theirs. But with that argument, again, I feel the insurance company should be paying the amount owed to buy the vehicle, not the market value.