How To Insure your 5th Wheel?

Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway owns both Geico and Forrest River, so they should be and are easy to work with on RVs.

Our trailer coverage is an adder to our Farmers auto coverage. Very reasonable rates I think.

I do agree that one should shop rates around now and then. But I have to say that changing insurance always ends up being a big pain in the rear. Things like properly notifying lien holders, something always seems to fall through the cracks either by me, or the agent, or the bank.

And we always combine auto and home to get the discounts. So then you open up another can of worms with getting all the escrow accounts setup, proper payees, etc. You can end up with lapsed coverage, like we just went through with our earthquake insurance. Fortunately I got it corrected before the big one hit.

At some not too distant future, I think I will drop coverage on the fiver. It's a luxury item, its' paid for, we don't depend on it for a place to live, and as the value decreases at some point it stops making sense to cover it for replacement. I'm sure you all know that liability coverage comes automatically with your TV insurance. So you're really just insuring against loss of the asset.

Insurance for full timers is much different (and much more expensive) than non full timer insurance. Typically non full timers insure their RV with their tow vehicle and use their home owners insurance to cover the contents. Since full timers do not own a home, a more comprehensive insurance policy is required and usually includes liability in case some one gets injured at your site and usually has a provision for full replacement for a period of the policy.

What sort of deductibles on the RV are typical?

Drifter1959 wrote:
Geico has a specific RV policy and as Florida insurers go, their rates are very competitive.
Its still a good idea to shop policy's and rates every two or three years.

We also have Geico and are full timers domiciled in TN. Our policy is a specific full timer policy with full replacement if totaled. We also have our 2012 F350 insured with them and have been very happy with Geico for about 6 years. When we switched to them from a long term with a competitor we saved $500 and got the same coverage.

Geico has a specific RV policy and as Florida insurers go, their rates are very competitive.
Its still a good idea to shop policy's and rates every two or three years.

We are full timers. As others have mentioned on this site, be sure your insurance company knows you are FT. Again, as others have mentioned, we recently got insurance through Dougherty and Associates in Sioux Falls, SD - Nationwide Insurance. They are an independent agency so she was able to compare several companies for us. Our rate went down $500 from our previous insurance. The whole process was painless (well, except paying) but we have good insurance to protect us! Highly recommend this company!

We agree with Dutchman Sport Allstate has done very well by us. When we first got the 5'er, my wife met a tree branch and the result was getting the roof replaced... no hassles no problems. We have been with them now for 10 years.

We have had our vehicles, house, and 5er with State Farm for many many years. Have filed claims a number of times over the years on vehicles and house and they have never hesitated to pay. After a major hail storm a couple yrs ago they paid to replace shingles, skylights, broken windows, attic vents, screens, repaint facia on house, plus a new roof, window, vent, and repaint of a storage building. Adjuster picked up on things I had not noticed, approved everything, and a check received shortly after.

Have never filed on the 5er but would expect the same response.

For insurance purposes, TT and 5er fall into the same category, they are both RV trailers.

We're with AllState and the trailer is a rider on our automobile policy. AllState has done us good every time we needed them. No hassles at all. Take your damaged vehicle to the repair shop they recommend and pay your deductible. Done!

Attempted a claim once on one TT and found out the deductable was just a little less than the total repair, so we did not go through with the claim. On our pop-up, they forked over $4,000 for a new roof on a $6,000 pop-up! We were absolutely impressed. That was many years ago.

The satisfaction of a good insurance company is not how cheap they are on their premiums. The real test of the waters is how efficient they are with claims. There are cheaper insurances than AllState, but getting good customer service and attention when you need it is priceless.

We've looked into switching from AllState and really, we've been with them for so long and we're grandfathered into some really great plans (for the house and the vehicles), it's impossible for another company to match what we have now.

For the RV rider on our AllState, it's only about a couple hundred dollars a year. Very reasonable for the coverage we have. We have "replacement" coverage, not fair market value coverage. Same on the house too.