Tells the state that an insurer has paid a total loss and the owner has kept the car. It is the insurance company’s form and the insurance company’s signature - but it is the document that starts your clock, because until it is filed and a salvage title issues you may not sell the vehicle at all.
Written against VTR-436 (Rev 01/25), issued under Texas Transportation Code 501.1002.
If you are the owner of a totalled car you kept, this page is here so you recognise the form when the adjuster mentions it - and so you know what has to happen next. The form you file is the VTR-441, and until the salvage title comes back the car cannot legally be sold.
Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank VTR-436 from the txdmv.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our VTR-436 guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.
This is the actual VTR-436, rendered from the PDF the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles publishes and completed end to end: letterhead, every field, and the blocks at the foot.
Amber — you write it
Grey — not yours to fill
Numbered — explained below
The real VTR-436, filled in the way it actually arrives - by an insurance company, about a car its owner decided to keep. Amber is what gets written; note that none of it is written by the owner.
Field by field
Every line, in the order you meet it
1
The insurance agent fills this in
Vehicle information
VIN, year, make, body style, model, plate and title number.
Watch out: Check the VIN against your own title before the insurer files. A wrong digit here follows the car.
2
The insurance agent fills this in
Insurance company information
The insurer, its address, and the authorised agent handling the claim.
Watch out: This is your evidence of who to chase if the report never reaches the department.
3
The insurance agent fills this in
Claim information
Your name and address as the insured or claimant, the date the claim was paid and the claim number.
Watch out: The date of claim payment is the one that matters - the insurer has until the 31st day after it to file.
4
The insurance agent fills this in
Damage disclosure
Wrecked, burned, flood or stripped, then salvage or nonrepairable, then the major-component grid.
Watch out: Ask which boxes were ticked. Nonrepairable means the vehicle can never be titled for the road again - that is a different outcome from salvage and worth knowing before you agree to anything.
At a glance
What goes where
On the form
What to put in it
Vehicle information
VIN, year, make, body style, model, plate and title or document number.
Insurance company information
The insurer’s name and address, and the authorised agent’s name, email and phone.
Claim information
The insured or claimant - that is you - with address, the date the claim was paid and the claim number.
Damage disclosure
Tick boxes for wrecked, burned, flood damage or stripped of major component parts, then one tick for salvage vehicle or nonrepairable vehicle, then a long grid of major component parts marked repair or replace.
What gets this one rejected
•You filing it. The whole top half asks for an insurance company, an authorised agent and a claim number. A vehicle owner has none of those.
•Leaving the damage type blank. The tick boxes are what put a flood notation on the eventual title rather than a bare salvage brand.
•Confusing salvage with nonrepairable. One tick, and they lead to different documents and different futures for the car.
•Filing it late. The insurer has until the 31st day after paying the claim, and the owner cannot move until it is done.
Rules that decide whether it is accepted
•It exists because you kept the car. An insurer that takes the wreck handles the title itself. Owner-retained means you took the money and kept the vehicle, and the state has to be told so the brand follows the car rather than getting lost.
•The flood tick is the one that lasts. Texas records flood damage as a notation on the salvage title, and it stays with the vehicle. That box is the difference between a car with a flood history on the record and one without.
•Repair or replace, part by part. The grid covering engine, frame, bumpers, doors, quarter panels and the rest is how Texas records the extent of the damage. It is the insurer’s assessment, not a repair plan.
•Nothing here transfers ownership. This is a report. The title work is a separate application - the VTR-441 - and it is yours to file, not the insurer’s.
Every line here was read off VTR-436 (Rev 01/25) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles pages.
This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ,
theirs governs.
