 You asked for it and now it's here I'm going to give you all the information you need to purchase the right RV insurance policy for you Hey everybody, it's Robin with creativity RV and welcome to episode 23 of be a nomad change your life My Sunday series where I try and give you every tip and trick you need to hit the road full-time and The link to the entire playlist is below if you need to catch up on the past 22 videos But today, I'm going to be doing a total video on RV insurance You guys may have seen a little video I did a couple of months ago where I got into a fender bender in a safe way parking lot in my RV And I was surprised down in the comments that a lot of you had questions about RV insurance now I'll tell you here when I said that I escaped corporate America to go live in my RV and be a writer Which was my dream my whole life I worked in insurance before then and so this girl knows a lot about insurance But there was a lot of things that I did not know that I did research on for this video So let's get right into it So in a second here I'm going to tell you how to choose the right place for your coverage And if you can be covered full-time and what happens if you get into a wreck and you can't live in your RV All of that stuff is going to be covered in just a second But first of all, I'm going to be giving you guys a really quick one-on-one on your insurance So go ahead and pause me And go get your insurance policy because I am going to go ahead and walk you through the basic coverages It's very important that you understand what these coverages do for you Here's something I want people to know I am sure that I'm going to get a lot of comments below about how insurance companies are trying to rip you off And what a terrible experience people have had and I know that people feel that way And that is true sometimes But what I want you to know going into this discussion is that you have total control Over what your coverages are you just have to understand them and just know this right from the beginning When you have an insurance policy It's a contract between you and the company and they cannot vary from what that coverage is So if something is covered there, they have to cover it But the flip side there is that just because you had a terrible accident and you're in dire straits And you're a really nice person that doesn't mean that they can give you more coverage than what's in the policy so the coverage is what it is and There are a lot of people out there selling insurance now that don't even understand the coverages themselves So I recommend that you ask some tough questions and then get a copy of your actual policy And I know like I hardly ever open that envelope like most of you open that envelope And if you don't have the coverages call your company and ask for something called a declarations packet or just That you want a copy of your coverages and actually look at it and read it. They're not that long They're not that hard to understand. I think it's kind of important So let's get into the coverages coverages for your motor home or your van or B plus or whatever are going to vary by State, but there are some basics. So the first thing that you're going to see when you look at your insurance packet is something that says B. I PD and that is bodily injury liability property damage Without fail in every state. I've ever seen that is the first thing listed. So Let me explain what this actually means You might see something on your auto policy or your insurance policy that has a slash in it like let's say 100,000 slash 300,000 or 255 hundred if you have a car in some states, you can have as low as 25,000 slash 50,000 this bodily injury coverage pays for the other person's injury in some states or pain and suffering or Death if you kill them and we drive some heavy vehicles out there, but here's what it really does it protects your assets So when you're thinking about what you need Don't necessarily say I want the state minimum. I don't want to pay anymore. It's a ripoff necessarily you want to look at what your assets are and You also want to look at what your retirement savings are because they can also look at that. So let's say that You have a hundred thousand dollars in assets and please I don't know if you have less or if you have more I'm just throwing that number out Let's say that you have a hundred thousand dollars in assets and you have twenty five thousand dollars in coverage What will happen is the person that you hit could get twenty five thousand from the insurance company And they can go after you for the other seventy five thousand So it doesn't cost very much more to bump up your coverage to the level that actually covers your assets So I recommend that you do that and look you can call the insurance agent or the 800 number whatever you go through and say I've got this coverage right now How much more would it be every month or every six months or every year if I bumped it up to the next level? Another thing to consider is what that slash mark means. So like I said, it might say 100 300 what that means is if you hit and hurt one person You've got a hundred thousand dollars max in coverage And if you hit and hurt more than one person up to many people you have 300,000 so that's what you want to think about if you have a company that does something called a combined single limit or it will say CSL then you're going to see something like 500 CSL and that probably means 500,000. So just remember Bodily injury covers the other guy's pain and suffering, but it's actually covering you so you don't get sued later The next coverage you're going to see there is property damage Same thing goes here that covers the other guy's car if you hit them that amount does not come out of bodily injury It's totally separate and just comes out of property damage or PD. So same thing here Let's say you have $25,000 in coverage and you hit a $50,000 car They can come after you and in my experience you can like triple the property damage coverage for like $3 a year So ask because this is not an expensive coverage to bump up I just noticed there's a big old shadow behind me So if you guys wonder where I am You may have seen a video come out already that I am stuck in a house for four days and I explained that in the video But sorry about the shadow after you look at your policy for bodily injury and property damage I'm going to skip past everything else now and go right down to the bottom you're going to see something that says uninsured underinsured motorist coverage and You're going to see a number there or you're going to see that it's waved Now listen to me people This is the most important coverage to me hands down that you need to have On your motorhome policy or your car policy and please get the word out to people You can in a lot of states reject this and in most states if you do you have to sign something saying you understand You're rejecting it. So let me explain what this does for you You know how the bodily injury we just talked about Covers the pain and suffering and possibly medical bills and death of the person that you hit Well, if you get hit by somebody and they don't have insurance or they don't have enough to cover you It's this uninsured underinsured motors that covers you not the other guy So don't wave this coverage in my opinion do what you like But in my opinion you should not wave this coverage because it's the only thing that will cover you If you get hit by an uninsured person, and I don't know I think in the last state I looked at 34% of people on the road are uninsured or they're going to be that jack wagon that has you know 25,000 in bodily injury and you have a brain injury from an accident or something Without uninsured underinsured motorist coverage you cannot get paid on that and again this one is not an expensive coverage It might be 10 bucks a month 15 20. It's going to vary by state Okay, now let's make it a sandwich So we've got the bodily injury property damage up here, and we've got the uninsured underinsured motorist down here Let's talk about all the stuff that you can get in the middle A lot of this is going to be similar to an auto policy and some of it's going to be different So let's go to what people call full coverage Which I actually hated when I worked in insurance because I think it's a really silly way to describe Collision and comprehensive coverage because when people here I have full coverage They think they're going to be covered for absolutely everything and like I said insurance is a contract and they're going to list out everything That's covered and not covered item by item. So there is no such thing as active God Or everything's covered because I have full coverage in most places Full coverage means that you have two things added onto your policy. You have collision and Comprehensive If you're looking at your policy collision is going to be under DD and Comprehensive is going to be under HH for the dorks in the room So here's what you want to think about when you think about collision collision covers your own car if you're in an at fault Accident if somebody else hits you that has insurance You're going to get paid through their property damage coverage that we talked about a minute ago If you're at fault then you're going to pay your deductible Let's say five hundred a thousand dollars and the rest of it is going to be covered under collision Unless that person doesn't have insurance in some states that will be covered under Collision and in other states it's going to be covered under something called uninsured motorist property damage You're just going to have to look at your own state The other important coverage under full coverage is comprehensive and this is pretty important for people in an RV because without this and The collision you can't get a bunch of other coverage as you need if you're full-time in your RV So I'll get to that, but when you think about comprehensive think about everything that can happen physically to your RV Outside of a collision so in fact in some states comprehensive is called other than collision so think about this Flood Like the water comes up through the engine and floods you out That's covered under comprehensive if you're parked and squirrels eat out the wires in your engine That's covered under comprehensive if you get struck by lightning and your electronics are knocked out That's covered under comprehensive or if somebody vandalizes the outside of your RV So you can see comprehensive is super important So collision and comprehensive are the two sides of full coverage and when you have those Then you have the ability to get a bunch of other coverage Here's a good rule of thumb with collision and comprehensive if you don't know if it's worth it The rule of thumb is that collision and comprehensive Coverage usually get less expensive as the RV gets older Until it hits about 10 years old and then it gets more expensive Because it's more likely that they're not going to be able to find a part that you need and they're going to total out The car if something happens So a lot of people get to a certain point and they think that their rig is not worth collision and comprehensive But without it you can't get some other cool coverages that you need inside of your RV So now let's get into some nomad specific coverage questions The first question probably for you if you're a full-time nomad is going to be how do I choose? my state and how do I choose my residence address and Can I even find a company that's going to cover me a lot of you wrote me and said That your insurance company said they did not cover full-time RVers a lot of companies do not so you're gonna have to search Personally I go through progressive their rates are good for me in my state and They do cover full-timers and they offer some good coverages. So you just have to search If you don't want to search go to progressive because in most states they're going to cover you now for the state of residence As a full-time nomad you get to choose that that's pretty cool, right? So just know this when you're looking at Your RV insurance and where you want to have your policy rated think about Where you think coverage is going to be more expensive? So for example You might want to go to a state that is less populated that has more insured drivers And you may want to go to a zip code in that state that let's say is more rural Because the rates are going to be better than say in a city Think about that while you're choosing your state of residence and also your residence address And I'll say here really quick because I'll do a video on this at some point But if you need a residence address you can do that even if you're a full-time nomad for me personally What I did is I went to mailboxes, etc. And rented a permanent box by year Because they don't have a PO box in front of their number So it reads like a street address and so you can use that for your registration your driver's license number and your insurance when you're full time in your RV and The insurance company is trying to decide what state to put you in they're going to ask you something like where do you spend? 50% or more of your time or Where is your RV stored? Most of the time when you're not in it So look You choose your state of residence you decide how long you're going to be there You just have to choose and you have to tell them remember that the people that you're talking to are trying to hit certain Boxes so that they can give you the rate if you go well You know I spend 20% here and I may go to Moab and I'm thinking about Pismo Beach And who knows I might hit Alaska that does not help your cause. So just Choose your place tell them the place get the rate if you want to shop around and you want to see what the different rates Are by state and in different zip codes in that state you can do something called a what-if It was called a what-if when I was in insurance. Maybe it's not still but here is what it means You call the company and you say hey, I want to get a price on a policy in South Dakota, and I'm not sure What my permanent address is going to be yet? We're looking at a couple of different zip codes Can you run them both for me and tell me the price and then you can say something like You know we're thinking about moving to this other state. Can you give me the rate there? They may have to transfer you to somebody else But that way you can do your own little spreadsheet of where you're going to get the best rates By the way, everybody. I know I'm talking fast People say in the comments sometimes I talk too fast I do that because a lot of people that watch these videos are on the road and they have limited data So I'm trying to cram it into 10 minutes if I go too fast. I apologize Please rewind and try and hear what I'm saying again. I know it's irritating for some people But I'm just trying to get it out there So let's get into some RV specific coverages that you wanted to know about in your RV insurance First, let's talk about contents. A lot of you said that you were having trouble getting your contents covered under an RV policy Just know this you have to find a carrier that wants the RV business and you can go full-time or part-time Those contents inside of your RV like your stuff like your clothes Your computer that kind of stuff is usually going to be under a coverage called personal effects Again, this can vary by state But this is usually what it's called in RV insurance and you cannot be covered for this Unless you have collision and comprehensive So do look to get some collision and comprehensive coverage if you can afford it You get about $10,000 in personal effects coverage Automatically and a lot of companies you can raise it up to about 99,000 But that adds on a little bit of premium again Ask them what it is because it's not that much and think about what a financial hardship It would be if you got into an accident and rolled over and had to go out and buy everything again It really does add up fast So you might need you know a good amount of coverage for what's inside of your RV or you might not It's up to you another important thing when you're thinking about your contents coverage or your personal effects coverage is that There's a maximum coverage on some types of contents So let's say that you've got $10,000 in personal effects coverage But you have a big loss in electronics This is one reason that you want to actually get the declarations packet for your policy or ask these questions because let's say you're a photographer or a Musician and you have a lot of a certain type of item There's probably a cap on how much they'll pay for that item. So for example on my progressive policy There's a $500 cap for electronic items like Tablets computers cameras that kind of thing. There is no way on my policy to raise that up even if I paid an additional premium It's a $500 cap and then they'll usually put a cap on for a Category so let's say I had all my electronics stolen. I could get $500 per item with a $3,000 cap for a whole bunch of items I cannot go up to that 10,000 for my whole RV That is one area where they have a lot of losses and so they cap it But if you're not in a category where you're capped like you might be for let's say cash jewelry electronics Musical equipment something like that It would just fall under the big $10,000 umbrella or whatever your coverage is with some companies You can get a writer to cover electronics or like musical equipment for more My policy doesn't have that with progressive I have not found one that does but you might be able to find one remember every state is different now Let's talk about coverage for towing. It may be called J coverage on your policy A lot of you might get something like a triple a towing policy Just know that you might not need that if you have towing on your policy and also remember this towing coverage doesn't only cover towing it usually and it depends on the policy But it usually covers any roadside Disablement so think like you lock your keys out of your car The good thing about this is it usually doesn't have a deductible and it doesn't count against you as a loss So your rates won't go up So if your battery dies if you get a flat tire If you lock your keys in your car or if you need a tow that could all be covered under towing coverage But you do need a good amount if you're in an RV So you might want to get 250 bucks 400 bucks 500 bucks up to a thousand It just depends on the company and finally let's talk about something called loss of use If you have owned a home or you had a renters policy in the past You may have seen a coverage like this on that policy and basically in a homeowner's policy It's like if your house catches on fire and you need to live in a hotel for six months While your house is being repaired loss of use Covers that total expense it covers any increased expense Over what you would normally spend for housing because of that fire on your RV policy if you ask You're going to find that there might be a coverage called emergency expense, which is like loss of use most policies have it baked into the base rate and Some of them you can buy more coverage. Here's how that coverage reads if you are displaced from your RV because of a covered loss Then they will pay up to a certain amount For transportation and for you to be put up. Let's say at a hotel on my policy is 750 bucks honestly when I was researching this I thought I might want to knock that up a little bit because That's not going to cover a lot of hotel expense If I'm in an accident and my RV is being repaired or I have to find a new RV But just remember it has to be from a covered loss So if your RV breaks down, this is not going to cover you It has to be from something like a collision or a flood or something like that So if it's covered under collision comprehensive Something like that and your RV is inoperable due to that covered loss Then you're going to have so much coverage for emergency expense And finally I'm going to tell you guys what you should do if you get into an accident I have taken to almost all the time having a dash cam on my dashboard I use a GoPro to do that just in case something happens but if you are in a fender bender take lots of pictures and I'm talking take a picture of everybody that was in that other car and Take a picture of all the damage take a picture of the weather take a picture of the road All of that can come into play I have seen some claims out there where one person was in the accident and four people claim they were injured you prove that by taking pictures of everybody that was at the scene and They may say that something was at a certain angle or the road was a certain way Take pictures just to cover yourself if somebody else hits you Go directly through their insurance company. It's just a hassle. Honestly if you go through your own insurance company They're probably gonna say you got to go through the other company or you go through your company That's a process They pay you and then they have to go back to the other person's company to get the money back And you don't get your deductible back until that's settled So if you're not at fault to go through the other person if you are at fault look, don't worry about it Use your insurance. That's what it's there for I wouldn't recommend that you put in tiny claims because it's just not worth it but Understand your coverage read your documents make sure that you know your policy doesn't lapse and you should be fine on the road Remember a lot of us don't have Homes and apartments and separate cars. We're not paying for all of those policies The only policy you're paying for is the one policy that you have on your RV If you're like me or the one that you have on your van now if you're in a van and not in an RV You cannot get motorhome insurance. So this is where it can get a little bit tricky You want to get the right coverage for the van itself But just remember your contents are not going to be covered the same way as they would be in a motorhome policy You're not going to have the emergency expense coverage or the coverage for the contents So you're going to have to get coverage for your contents another way You might want to have a separate renters policy and that might mean that I don't know You have a room in a friend's house and you have a box there and you store that stuff there And you get the renters policy there I don't know it's going to depend on what you feel comfortable with and your friends and family and what state You're in for loss of use. I don't know of a way to get that covered when you're in a van So you guys that's it if you have questions about Insurance on an RV or you want to share some story with me, please do so in the comments below Do share this because I have not seen this information anywhere else And I know a lot of us have questions and it's important that everybody gets covered right so they feel comfortable on their journey and Please do smash that thumbs up button because again When you give this video a thumbs up it helps other people discover this video in this channel So I appreciate it if you haven't subscribed already, please consider doing so I appreciate you all very much have happy travels out there and be free