RV Insurance helps insure your "home away from home" while you are out camping or traveling across the country. It helps cover your liability exposure, plus physical damage to your RV and its contents.
RV Insurance is a policy you can get to help insure your home away from home while you are out camping or traveling across the country to surprise your kids by showing up with no prior notice. This will help cover your liability exposure, and physical damage to your RV and contents that may be stored in the vehicle.
What is RV insurance and why do I need it?
If you own an RV you know how much fun it can be to ride around the country exploring new states and national parks while also having the comfort of home to come back to every night. What you might not have thought about is that an RV needs to have specialized insurance to remain properly covered on the road. RV Insurance is very similar to an auto insurance policy; it just covers a very specific type of vehicle and can also offer a few extra optional coverages that you might not see on a standard auto policy.
Let's go over the common coverages and how they might differ from your normal auto insurance policy
- Liability: This is the coverage that will protect you in the event of an accident where you were found to be at fault. This coverage will cover any injuries to someone else; as well as any damage done to other property (Up to your policy limit). This is arguably the most important coverage on your policy, especially since RV's are such large vehicles and there is a lot of potential for some major damage to be done if something bad happens.
- Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist: This coverage helps protect you from those people on the roadways who decide to drive around without any insurance coverage, or if they carry low limits and cause an accident that maxes out their coverage amount. This will ensure that if something happens and someone hits you that does not have any coverage you are not left holding the bag on paying for these damages out of pocket.
- Example: someone hits you at a red light and does not currently have any insurance. You have $10,000 in hospital bills and your RV has $5,000 in damages done to the rear bumper. ($500 collision deductible)
- *Without Uninsured/Underinsured Coverage* Your health insurance would cover the hospital bills while your RV policy would pay $4,500 to fix the damage to your RV after your deductible is paid.
- *With Uninsured/Underinsured Coverage* Your RV insurance provider would pay the $10,000 hospital bill and also pay $4.750 to repair the RV after the Uninsured Motorist deductible of $250 is subtracted.
- Example: someone hits you at a red light and does not currently have any insurance. You have $10,000 in hospital bills and your RV has $5,000 in damages done to the rear bumper. ($500 collision deductible)
- Comprehensive/Collision: These are going to be the exact same as a standard Auto policy.
- Comprehensive: Coverage for things that you typically cannot control; Fire, Hail, Flood, Vandalism, Theft, etc.
- Collision: Coverage to protect your RV from physical damage if you run into anything/anyone.
RV Insurance and Personal Effects Coverage
One of the big differences between a standard auto policy and an RV policy is that RV policies offer coverage for personal belongings stored in the RV. Now all your camping essentials and everything you need to enjoy your RV are also covered at replacement cost so you can get the full value to replace the item up to your policy limit without having to buy a used version from a second hand store.
Example: You are doing a cross-country road trip with your family and you have brought some personal items to keep the kids happy during the trip; iPad, Laptop, Bikes, Scooters, etc. During your trip someone breaks into the RV while you are at a restaurant and steals the iPad, Laptop and other small items from the RV.
- *Without Personal Effects Coverage* Your insurance provider will pay to replace the items stolen at an Actual Cash Value basis, meaning you will get a depreciated amount based on how old the item was and the condition it was in at the time it was stolen.
- *With Personal Effects Coverage* Your insurance provider will pay to replace the items stolen at a Replacement Value meaning that you will get the full value of the items based on their value when they were new.
RV Insurance and Trip Interruption Coverage
RV Insurance also has it's own equivalent of Roadside Assistance called Trip Interruption. You can think of this coverage as a beefed up version of the standard Roadside Assistance. On top of helping to get your vehicle towed if disabled, or sending someone out to help change the spare tire it can also provide food and lodging funds if you are unable to use your RV and have to pay for additional meals and hotel stays due to the vehicle being disabled.
For example; you and your family are again doing a cross-country road trip and your RV suffers damage due to a small fire that broke out in the kitchen area of the RV. Because of the damage you are unable to stay in the RV while it is being repaired and have to stay in a hotel for a couple of days while the RV is made livable again.
- *Without Trip Interruption Coverage* You would be responsible for paying for your hotel costs and any food costs that happen while the RV is being repaired.
- *With Trip Interruption Coverage* Your insurance provider would pay for your hotel stay and any incremental food costs up to your policy limit due to the incident.
RV vs. Trailer vs. Mobile Home Coverage
There can be some confusion when discussing coverage for RV's since there are several different types of insurance policies out there that sound like they might cover the same; if not similar items. When we talk about the differences between RV, Trailer, and Mobile Home policies they can vary vastly depending on the policy coverages.
RV vs. Trailer Policy: The main difference between an RV and trailer policy comes down to how the vehicle is being moved. If the vehicle is self propelled and able to drive itself it would fall under the RV policy. If the vehicle is only able to be towed it would fall under the Trailer policy. Both RV and trailer policies act very similar to auto policies and offer many of the same optional coverages we spoke about above. One major difference in them coverage wise is that the trailer policy will not offer liability coverage since the liability for the trailer will be extended by whatever vehicle is towing the trailer. The RV will have it's own liability coverage included on the policy since it drives itself.
Example: If you are driving a motor home that includes living space in the vehicle while it is being driven you would want an RV insurance policy. If you are pulling a pop up camper behind your Truck/SUV to a location to stay in while you are camping you would want to either include the trailer on your Auto Insurance policy, or get an insurance policy for just the trailer.
RV vs. Mobile Home Policy: These two policies are vastly different; the RV is very similar to an auto policy in the types of coverages offered and the way payouts are done. The mobile home policy will act as a standard home or dwelling policy depending on the occupancy. This coverage means that it will have the same types of coverages as a standard homeowners or rental home policy; (Coverage for the building, contents, medical payments, etc.)
For example;
- If you are driving a motor home that includes living space in the vehicle while it is being driven you would want an RV insurance policy.
- If you have a double-wide delivered to a permanent location via truck you would want a Mobile Home policy.
Article written by: Agent: Rachael Henley