Polite perserverance is your friend here. In Oregon, if the total of the repair bill is more than 75% of the bike's value, they total it. They may total it for other reasons, like structural damage that may not be easy to reliably repair. I tend to think they total bikes easily. There aren't too many shops that can reliably straighten a frame, especially aluminum, and since it's usually just a a few thousand dollars total to pay it out it's not worth spending their time trying to sort through all the details.
An option that's often available is to total it and buy it back. They give you the value of the bike, minus your deductible, minus the scrap value that a wrecker would likely pay. It will then have a "branded" or "reconstructed" title if you rebuild it rather than just part it out which can lower the resale value.
When my Ducati went down I got $5000 and bought it back for $1275. I really only needed maybe $500 in parts, the rest was scratches, but expensive ones
I didn't want it but sold it to my dealership for the $1275 and they patched it up and sold it to an employee cheap. She lives on.
Don't get hung up on priciples here, it's just a monetary transaction for them, they have no emotion at stake just because you do. Keep talking to them, be polite. You may want to ask a shop that does insurance for tips on how to negotiate. They'll usually come around some. I was able to get the value of my Ducati up from $4000 to $5000 by finding some comparables and getting a letter from the dealer stating what they'd sell it for.
Scott