An insurance adjuster gave a crash course on what it means to be in even a minor car accident today: your car will likely be considered “totaled.”

In a column posted on automobile news blog theautopian.com, the adjuster wrote that rising repair costs – spurred by more technological advances in cars and hard-to-get replacement parts — has the insurance industry recalculating what is considered a total loss and what is salvageable.

Confessing that his job is disheartening at times, the blogger wrote, “My job is to kill cars. For example, any older car that gets a light hit that requires a handful of parts and paint labor? It goes to the scrap yard in a hurry. The formula is simple: Get the value for the car, write a damage estimate, add 30% for potential supplementary repairs, get a bid on the salvage selling price and then do the math. If the value is higher than those three combined, it gets repaired.”

In the wake are stories of “elderly folks candidly admit(ting) that the car that I just deemed a total loss was supposed to be the last car they ever owned,” people on fixed incomes who can’t afford a new car, and car collectors who spent years bringing relics back to life.

“You have to call the owner and let them know their car is determined to be a total loss,” the adjuster wrote. “This is not fun at all. There is no upside to these conversations. Owners can fall into many different categories, but not many people like to go car shopping unexpectedly. The majority of folks do not want to suddenly replace their car.”