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viajante's avatar
viajante
Explorer
May 02, 2019

Be wary of National General Insurance

If you are considering getting RV insurance, please be wary of National General Insurance. My experience with them was the worst in my almost sixty years of driving (including 15 years with RVs). National General gave me a very reasonable rate and got very good ratings.
However, when I had an accident my experience turned very sour. My accident occurred on a narrow curvy mountain road. As I was driving an oncoming vehicle drifted over the centerline. In order to avoid a head on collision, I had to swerve. This caused me to collide with the guard rail. Since the guard rail was very close to the road’s edge, the impact was unavoidable.
National General found me 100% at fault, because I could not prove that another vehicle caused this impact. In fact, the adjuster even implied that I should have turned a 35 foot motorhome around on a narrow two lane road and chased the offender. They further kept focusing on irrelevant facts (such as there was no place for me to immediately stop). I have never been treated so rudely by any insurance company.
To add insult to injury all of their approved repair shops in my area were those that I know were extremely marginal. Although I was allowed to choose an alternative, their language was strongly discouraging, with strong warnings that implied that they may not pay the full cost of repair. The coach was repaired, but it took 3 times as long as it should have, because of the incompetence of the repair facility. The final insult was that they more than doubled my rate (based on their bogus "at fault determination) I will never do business with this terrible unfriendly company again.
  • Dash Cams are worth the money. One would have prevented all the aggravation suffered by the OP. Even a cheap one is better than none........Dennis
  • "National General found me 100% at fault, because I could not prove that another vehicle caused this impact."

    Sorry about that! Sounds like you've been talking to an insurance adjuster! Unfortunately these days, you need to be an attorney to understand insurance boilerplate and IMO, they plan it that way.

    I once foolishly filed a claim with my previous insurance company under the "uninsured motorist" clause. An uninsured motorist (from south of the border) wiped out the side of my aging 4 door German sedan. I had all the contact info for the at fault driver, but, my insurance company refused the claim because they could not contact the at fault driver to confirm that he was . . . . uninsured. It was then that they informed me that if I had "comprehensive insurance" on my 12 year old car, I would have been covered. Oooowwww. Live and learn!

    Chum lee
  • Just an FYI. No insurance company can tell you where to have your vehicle repaired. And they have to repair it to “prior accident condition”.
  • You may wish to consider investing in a dash cam. We did because a vehicle in front of us lost a part of their roof rack and it hit our motorhome at toad. We had to pay the entire deductible because the driver insisted that nothing came off of their car. It is sad that we have to have a video camera running all the time but it has saved my bacon already! I now have dash cams in all of my vehicles. BTW it is unfortunately sometimes better to actually hit a vehicle that violates the law such as by veering into your lane rather than avoid them which is the instinctive thing to do. It sounds idiocy but you get no credit for avoiding a more severe accident if you actually do get into an accident. Commercial truck drivers know this and will almost always hit an offending vehicle just to have it documented to protect their license.
  • My NGI claim went fine. But the other person was at fault and we both waited for a police report to be written. Sorry about your troubles.

    Only solution for next time would be a dash cam.
  • My policy with them is up soon. I've never had a claim, so your story is disheartening to say the least. Care to recommend who you ended up with?
  • I pay quite a bit more for my insurance than the bargain companies charge. But when we've had to make claims, it was hassle free and very smooth. Even when one was our fault in a parking lot.