It absolutely is a local craigslist lookup— I followed up with one of the dealerships USAA called (6 hours away from where we live, with all of four cars in their "lot") to clarify how their valuation was provided. They explained that Vanessa (the USAA agent) simply asked how much they would sell a VW TDI for if they were a VW dealership. The high-school aged secretary said she didn't really know, so agreed that whatever value Vanessa offered sounded reasonable. This was the value they were willing to pay when their drunk client smashed through my parked car in the middle of the night in his BMW on the way back from the opera. "Industry Standard published tables" must just be the title on the top of the sticky note from her calling around.

The whole thing was an absolutely miserable experience completely stacked against any sort of reasonable resolution, and USAA was caught in so many lies it still irritates me years later. I'm sad that this is so clearly a continual process for people day to day.