Total loss

A loss on account of which the assured is entitled to recover from the underwriter the whole amount of his subscription. Such a loss may arise either by the total destruction of the thing insured, or by such damage to it as renders it of little or no value. It is absolute when the subject wholly perishes, or its recovery is hopeless; and it is constructive when the subject is not wholly destroyed, but its destruction is rendered highly probable, and its recovery, though not utterly hopeless, is yet exceedingly doubtful.