Total Loss

Originally and literally, this phrase, used in insurance law, imports the entire destruction of the thing insured. But in the development of that branch of law, rules have become established, entitling the insured to collect tiie whole insurance money in various other cases, where the property is so injured as to i-ender it of little value; where it is taken from him, and so lost to him, though not destroyed; where he elects to abandon or relinquish to the insurer all that is left; and thus "total loss" has come practically to mean that degree of injury which is recognized as sufficient to entitle the insured to receive the whole insurance money. Total loss is either actual or constructive, — actual, when the thing is actually destroyed, or so damaged that it cannot ever arrive in specie at the is yet so great as to make the subject of it useless to its owner. When the subject of the insurance, though not wholly destroyed, is placed in such peril as to render the successful prosecution of the venture improbable, the insured may treat the case as a total loss, and demand the full sum insured. In such case, however, he must, within a reasonable time, give notice to the insurer of his intention, and of his abandonment to the insurer of all right in the thing insured.

See 2 Steph. Com. 132, 133; Am. Mar. Ins. (Perk, ed.) 993; Crump Mar. Ins. § 330; 3 Kent Com. 318.

Total loss, in liiarine insurance, signifies the total destruction of the thing insured, or such damage to the thing insured as renders it, though it may specifically remain, of little or no value to the owner.

Livermore v. Newburyport Marine Ins. Co., 1 Mass. 264.

An embargo or detention by a foreign friendly power constitutes a total loss, and warrants an immediate abandonment. And where there is a complete capture, at sea, of a neutral vessel by a belligerent, who takes full possession of the vessel as prize, and continues that possession to the time of the abandonment, there exists, in point of law, a total loss; and the act of abandonment vests the right to the thing abandoned in the underwriters, and the amount of insurance in the assured.

Rhinelander v. Ins. Co. of Pennsylvania, 4 Cranch, 29.

Damages to a vessel by any perils of the sea, on the voyage insured, which could not be repaired at the port to which such vessel proceeded after the injury, without an expenditure of money to an amount exceeding half the value of the vessel at that port, after such repairs, constitute a total loss. And the value of the vessel at the time of the accident, and at the place where the accident occurs, is the true basis of calculation.

Patapsco Ins. Co. v. Southgate, 5 Pet. 604. s. p. Bradlie v. Maryland Ins. Co., 12 Pet. 378.

The words total loss, in their literal sense, mean complete physical annihilation and destruction of the thing; but in a sense adopted in insurance, they signify a loss which is total to the owner; as where the goods are seized and taken away, or have been rendered worthless for the uses or purposes for which they are designed.

Wallerstein v. Columbian Ins. Co., 3 Robt..528.

Totidem verbis

In so many words; in those precise words.

Toties quoties

As often as; as often as it may happen.