total loss

Fire insurance.

The complete destruction of the insured property by fire, so that nothing of value remains from it; as distinguished from a partial loss, where the property is damaged, but not entirely destroyed. Test whether building burned is "total loss" is whether substantial portion is left standing in condition reasonably suitable as basis on which to reconstruct building in like condition as to strength, security, and utility as it was before fire. Commerce Ins. Co. v. Sergi, Tex.Civ.App., 60 S.W.2d 1046.

Total loss is such destruction of a building as that, after the fire, there remains standing in place no substantial remnant thereof which a reasonably prudent owner, uninsured, desiring to restore the building to its original condition, would utilize as a basis of such restoration. Crutchfield v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 306 S.W.2d 948, 952.

@ actual total loss

The total loss of a vessel covered by a policy of insurance, by its real and substantive destruction, by injuries which leave it no longer existing in specie, by its being reduced to a wreck irretrievably beyond repair, or by its being placed beyond the control of the insured and beyond his power of recovery. Distinguished from a constructive total loss, which occurs where the vessel, though injured by the perils insured against, remains in specie and capable of repair or recovery, but at such an expense, or under such other conditions, that the insured may claim the whole amount of the policy upon abandoning the vessel to the underwriters. In such cases the insured is entitled to indemnity as for a total loss.

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