LKQ vs. the Stale Price Bank: Where Contents Claims Quietly Lose 15–30%

Two people can look at the same destroyed sofa and produce numbers that differ by 40%. Neither is lying. They are using different clocks.

Like Kind & Quality — LKQ — is the standard nearly every policy and every court already uses. It asks a specific question: what does it cost, today, to replace this item with one of like kind and like quality? Not what the claimant paid for it in 2019. Not what a generic "sofa, sectional, mid-grade" costs in a database that was priced at some unstated point in the past. What it costs now, in a real market, from a real seller.

That word — today — is where most of the money is won or lost.

How a price bank goes stale without anyone noticing

A price bank is a database of item categories with associated unit costs. It is genuinely useful: it makes a 2,000-line inventory tractable, and it enforces consistency across adjusters. The problem is structural, not malicious.

• Update lag. Databases are refreshed on a cycle. Between refreshes, every price in the bank is a historical price presented as a current one.
• Category compression. A price bank has one line for "dining table, wood, 6-seat." The real market has a $340 version and a $3,900 version, and the claimant owned exactly one of them. Compression defaults toward the middle, which systematically understates anyone who owned above-median goods.
• No local supply signal. After a regional mass-loss event, hundreds of families are replacing the same categories in the same metro at the same time. Local availability tightens and effective replacement cost rises. A national database cannot see that.
• No source to argue with. A database figure is an assertion. When it is challenged, there is nothing behind it to point at except the database.

What the gap actually looks like

Below is the same room, priced two ways. The categories are identical. The methodology is not.

Item	Price-bank category value	Live LKQ, sourced	Delta
Twin storage bed w/ under-bed drawers	$520	$849 (Pottery Barn Kids, live link)	+$329
Twin mattress, foam / innerspring	$310	$449 (Ashley, live link)	+$139
Duvet / comforter, patterned	$95	$190 (Crate & Barrel, live link)	+$95
Nightstand (×2, mismatched)	$180 (1 generic line)	$314.95 (2 lines, matched separately)	+$134.95
Partial room	$1,105	$1,802.95	+63%

Illustrative comparison using the line items from our published sample deliverable. Individual deltas vary widely by category; the aggregate effect across a full inventory is typically 15–30%.

Notice the fourth row. Two nightstands, purchased at different times, from different retailers, at different price points — collapsed by the price bank into one generic line at one generic value. Item-level matching prices them as what they were: a $149.95 Child Craft and a $165 gray painted piece. That is not aggressive valuation. It is accuracy.

Why "sourced" is the entire argument

An adjuster or opposing expert can dispute a number. It is considerably harder to dispute a live retailer URL for a currently available, visually matched product, dated to the day the research was performed.

The number is not the deliverable. The evidence behind the number is the deliverable. The number is a consequence.

A defensible line item carries six things:

1. Description specific enough to identify the actual item, not the category
2. Quantity
3. Unit cost and extended replacement cost
4. Source — the named retailer
5. Source URL — the live product page, retrievable and checkable
6. Visual basis — the photo or record the item was identified from, location-tagged

With all six present, a challenge to any single line is resolvable in about ninety seconds. Without them, a challenge to one line becomes a challenge to the credibility of the whole schedule.

Nearest-comparable matching, and where judgment enters

Most destroyed items are no longer sold. The model was discontinued, the retailer closed, the fabric was seasonal. LKQ does not require finding the identical SKU — it requires finding the nearest comparable in kind and quality.

That means matching on the attributes that drive price: material, construction, dimensions, brand tier, and condition-adjusted quality. A solid-oak dresser does not comp to a laminate one because both are dressers. Getting this right is the difference between a schedule that survives review and one that gets characterized as inflated.

It cuts both ways. Honest nearest-comp matching sometimes produces a lower number than the claimant expected, and that is fine — a schedule that is defensible in both directions is worth more in negotiation than one that only ever rounds up.

Depreciation is a separate fight, and documentation decides it

LKQ establishes replacement cost. Depreciation is applied afterward to reach actual cash value, and it is often applied by broad category rather than by item. Documented age, condition, and quality on each line converts depreciation from a default schedule into a line-by-line conversation — which is where the claimant's position is strongest, because most people's possessions are in better condition than a default table assumes.

What to do with this

If you are a public adjuster or attorney reviewing a carrier-side contents valuation, three questions surface most of the gap:

1. What is the source and date of each unit cost? If the answer is a database name with no date, the pricing is undated by construction.
2. How many distinct items were collapsed into each line? Category compression is quiet and cumulative.
3. What was the total item count? Compare it against the room count and square footage. A 3-bedroom home producing a 600-line inventory is a scoping problem, not a contents problem.

The value is usually still there. It just has not been documented yet.