Insurance Woes for the Astroliner

[Bob Patterson]

I have had Progressive insurance for the last six years on my home built. I took the teardrop to the agent's office and he took a bunch of pictures to send to the underwriters. I got it insured for $10,000 at $231 a year. I asked for the 10,000 dollar amount. I probably need to increase that amount to $15,000. Before I found Progressive, I had tried every one I could think of. My camper is the only thing I have insured with Progressive. They didn't require my vehicle or anything else.

[Rhinoman64]

I have been in the insurance business for about three decades. Even though my specialty is in commercial lines, our agency also sells personal lines policies (auto, home, etc.).
I’m in the beginning build stages of my teardrop, so haven’t previously researched the availability of insuring home-built travel trailers. I did some looking today to satisfy my curiosity and to see if I could help you guys (and girls) out.
First, a big disclaimer: Insurance is regulated at the state level, so what products are available, the coverages offered, etc. will vary. Secondly, underwriting requirements also vary region by region and for that matter sometimes city to city (coastal vs. inland, for example). I’m in Texas so that is my reference point.
We’re independent agents so we represent many different insurance companies. I checked the guidelines of those we regularly use to write RVs with the following results:

Progressive – explicitly states in their product manual that “home manufactured units are not acceptable.” Based on Bob’s post above, I checked the Georgia guidelines as well. It says the same thing. So Bob, I would look at your policy and make sure the description of the trailer says home built or something similar. It is possible to get the system to take a trailer without the make and model, but if it wasn’t explicitly disclosed to the company that it was a home-built you may have trouble come claim time. Or your agent might!
Safeco – As Michael has already discovered, Safeco ain’t gonna write it. Interestingly though, they leave open the idea of a rebuilt manufactured trailer.
Foremost (part of the Farmers group) – They won’t write it, dum-di-dum-dum dum-dum dum. Explicitly stated in their manual.
Mercury Insurance – Finally some hope! It appears they will add home-built trailers to a personal auto policy. In other words, they must insure your autos as well. They also don’t write in all states, so this won’t be an option for many of you. Valuation will require underwriter approval.

Finally, for those of you who believe you have coverage under your homeowner policy, read your policy. Trailers usually have a max limit ($1500) and will not be covered while being towed or hitched for towing. Also doesn’t provide theft coverage away from the premises.
Let me also say that in almost every state (and maybe all), liability extends from the TV so this is not a problem if you have auto insurance in force. It is the physical damage coverage that we are talking about (which includes theft).

Sorry about the long post but I hope it is helpful.

Bryan

[greygoos]

Great information Bryan. Thanks

[pchast]

Very helpful. Thanks for checking

[John61CT]

How about Chubb?

My family's got dozens of policies some for decades.

Do not want to approach their agent though.

[Graniterich]

So here's what USAA told me. Every vehicle including trailers carry a $5000 dollar rider to cover improvements such as after market stereo, custom wheels, any upgrade and contens. So I insured it for$500, and was told the rider will cover teardrop if I can show the finished product. Having said that, my trailer is so safe on my rural property, stored in a building. Only used for close trips a couple/few times a year. Your milage may very.... I completely trust USAA due to forty years of dealing with them, including claims that were beyond fair

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[KTM_Guy]

Any updates on this? I am having the same problem with my build.

Todd

[lfhoward]

I want to put in a plug for Amica.

I have my Jeep insured through them and I’ve been a customer since the 1990’s, so maybe that got me a little extra flexibility. Either way, here’s what I know:

My trailer is covered by my auto policy while on the road.
It’s covered by a homeowners/renters policy while parked at home.
I don’t store it at home though as there is no room at my new house for parking. They wrote me a separate policy for where I store it, so if anything happens to it like a fire, theft, tree falling on it, etc. it would be covered. It’s not that expensive.

The value of the trailer that it’s insured for is the sum of the prices I bought all the components for. I sent them a spreadsheet and photos of the exterior and interior and asked if they wanted receipts. They told me to hang onto the receipts, which I am. (I have been filing all that stuff since I started the build.)

Anyhow, if you’re having trouble insuring your trailer, I think Amica would be worth looking into. They also have good rates for auto insurance and pay their customers a dividend every year which is always a big help. For context I am in Pennsylvania.

[KTM_Guy]

I want to put in a plug for Amica.

I have my Jeep insured through them and I’ve been a customer since the 1990’s, so maybe that got me a little extra flexibility. Either way, here’s what I know:

My trailer is covered by my auto policy while on the road.
It’s covered by a homeowners/renters policy while parked at home.
I don’t store it at home though as there is no room at my new house for parking. They wrote me a separate policy for where I store it, so if anything happens to it like a fire, theft, tree falling on it, etc. it would be covered. It’s not that expensive.

The value of the trailer that it’s insured for is the sum of the prices I bought all the components for. I sent them a spreadsheet and photos of the exterior and interior and asked if they wanted receipts. They told me to hang onto the receipts, which I am. (I have been filing all that stuff since I started the build.)

Anyhow, if you’re having trouble insuring your trailer, I think Amica would be worth looking into. They also have good rates for auto insurance and pay their customers a dividend every year which is always a big help. For context I am in Pennsylvania.

We called Amica's 800 number and was told they do not insure home built trailers. We'll try a local office in the morning.

Todd

[Scotter]

i wanted to go ahead and share a good experience here with AAA.

this being my first build, i naively went into the final stages of construction on a tight deadline and just assumed (you know what they say about that) i could, most likely, simply add my trailer to our Allstate policy since we had been customers for over 15 years in good standing - not to mention 4 other families in my extended family were long term customers also. i figured at the worst we would just be able to put together a rider on our tow vehicle to cover it.

well, here in GA it seems the deck must be stacked against homebuilt trailers to begin with, because Allstate turned the trailer down immediately without a second guess even though our agent tried to find a solution. seems to be something in the corporate red tape that bars them from covering home builds. Allstate was decent to us for all these years but we took their no-go as a chance to do some shopping for a new provider, hoping that moving our auto and home insurance over to someone else would help also convince them to find a way to accommodate the teardrop too.

in my research in the days that followed, all of the other big players gave the same response - Progressive, Nationwide, State Farm, etc. I tried some of the names mentioned in this thread as well, including Farmers, Mercury and USAA and got the same general response. State Farm came the closest to getting us taken care of, but the agent again told me their corporate policy in GA would not allow them to cover a home built camper.

on a whim my wife suggested AAA and their site mentions covering travel trailers. i gave them a call and they wouldn't cover the teardrop on its own, but they WOULD if we moved coverage on our 2 cars over to them as well. They asked for a lot of detailed images of the build, intended mileage, and I think it helped me out to have a VIN already provided on my NT Ironton 5x8. We agreed on a $15k total loss value and comprehensive/collision coverage at ~$175/yr . Super friendly people to deal with, very fast on the communications and i think our agent genuinely loved the camper and was rooting for us anyway. i think we had all the paperwork hammered out inside of a business week and were able to get the John Hancock's down on paper the day before we left on the maiden voyage.

As it turned out, our auto insurance with them was cheaper, and more robust than Allstate was anyway, so it was a win-win (plus all the access to their maps, roadside stuff and travel discounts). if you're in GA i'd strongly recommend sending Karyn Williams a note at [email protected]. tell her Scott in Augusta with the orange teardrop sent ya!

[John61CT]

With any unusual edge cases, best not to bother dealing with the companies directly.

A sympathetic agent with solid experience in that niche really is the way to go.

[rjgimp]

Safeco – As Michael has already discovered, Safeco ain’t gonna write it. Interestingly though, they leave open the idea of a rebuilt manufactured trailer.

I can't wrap my meager little mind around that. Isn't "...a rebuilt manufactured trailer..." ***exactly*** what Michael has?