Actual Cash Value Calculator

About this calculator

Actual cash value (ACV) is what an insured item is worth after depreciation, typically calculated as: ACV = Replacement Cost - Depreciation, where depreciation is usually the item’s age divided by its expected useful life, applied against the replacement cost. A 5-year-old appliance with a 10-year useful life and a 1,000 dollar replacement cost has lost roughly half its value, giving an ACV around 500 dollars.

Insurers use ACV rather than full replacement cost on many home, auto and renters policies (an ACV policy as opposed to a replacement cost value, or RCV, policy), which means a claim payout for a stolen 4-year-old laptop reflects its depreciated worth, not what a new one costs today. After a covered loss, the claim payout is ACV minus the policy’s deductible; understanding whether a policy covers ACV or RCV, and how much of a gap that creates, is one of the more consequential fine-print details in a policy.

This calculator takes an item’s replacement cost, age, useful life and condition and returns its actual cash value along with the estimated claim payout after your deductible.