Insurance: Totaled/Salvage Question

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Alright folks, we've had a member post in the Sentra section regarding a Spec V that insurance says is totaled. He says that somehow the title is still clean, as the insurance company has never taken possession of it. I fail to see how this is possible. If they claim it's totaled, doesn't it automatically become a totaled car, and if he were to fix it, it'd have a salvage title?

Here's the thread: zerothread/298929

I suspect it's totaled because it appears that the radiator core support is not at all where it's supposed to be, and frame work isn't cheap.

I don't know jack about insurance, and generally I don't care, but this has me intrigued.