RV Security

$12,000 Dollars!!?? worth of equipment? Good Grief. They could steal everything in my trailer including the TV my two laptops (new) and the refrigerator and it would only amount to about $4000.

What on earth was he carrying in his camper...heroin?

My two dogs tend to make thieves choose a less daunting target.

AstroRig57 wrote:

JimK-NY wrote:
Make sure your insurance covers theft from an RV. We had insurance but found we had no coverage. The typical coverage is from a homeowners policy and not through the RV insurance. If you are a full timer and have no homeowners, be sure your RV insurance is for a full timer. National Interstate has good full time policies. Most of the rest of the companies do not provide theft coverage.

If you have selected proper coverage you should be covered.

If you have "Personal Effects" coverage on your RV, items IN your RV or, at least in the case of our coverage, stored ON "property owned by you on which the RV is parked, and reserved exclusively for use of the RV", (like a pad for parking the RV), OR property stored ON "property reserved for the use of your RV" (like an RV site or campsite), is covered against loss by virtually any means including THEFT.

The caveat is, that on some policies you must elect to have "Personal Effects" coverage, or increase personal effects coverage that may be part of the comprehensive but that has minimal limits.

Default personal effects coverage on our Progressive Policy was $1,000. Since we often travel with valuable astronomy equipment, we customized our RV coverage to have the maximum Personal Effects coverage of $10,000. Even this often won't cover all of the equipment we often carry with us but it's the best we can do as part timers. I think full timers can select higher coverage than this. We have a deductible of only $100 on our personal effects coverage.

Though there are minimal personal effects inside it when the motorhome is on the pad at our home, we also have a wireless motion detector in the RV which has sufficient range to set off the monitored alarm system for the house.

All of that said, we've never had problems of any kind with theft from our RV's or campsites at home or away.

I am not sure every insurance company offers the riders and options to provide adequate coverage. Even yours sounds shaky. Maybe campgrounds are covered. The wording sounds questionable. But you would not be covered if you stopped at Walmart and had a theft while shopping. When we were fulltimers, we visited relatives and rented a car. Items were stolen from the car and we found that we did not have coverage. That changed when we went to National Interstate. Their policies are geared towards fulltimers. Other policies and agents don't seem to understand.

I've always been lucky enough to store our RVs inside our business; so my only concern has been theft while parked at a restaurant, for example. All my RV have had signs that says "Dogs On Board". I figure a thief might leave mine, for an easier, quieter target? Of course, in days gone by, my Cattle Dog would have been a formidable protector, anyway. The 2 fuzzbutts I have now - not so much - but they'd bark like mad....LOL!

JimK-NY wrote:
Make sure your insurance covers theft from an RV. We had insurance but found we had no coverage. The typical coverage is from a homeowners policy and not through the RV insurance. If you are a full timer and have no homeowners, be sure your RV insurance is for a full timer. National Interstate has good full time policies. Most of the rest of the companies do not provide theft coverage.

If you have selected proper coverage you should be covered.

If you have "Personal Effects" coverage on your RV, items IN your RV or, at least in the case of our coverage, stored ON "property owned by you on which the RV is parked, and reserved exclusively for use of the RV", (like a pad for parking the RV), OR property stored ON "property reserved for the use of your RV" (like an RV site or campsite), is covered against loss by virtually any means including THEFT.

The caveat is, that on some policies you must elect to have "Personal Effects" coverage, or increase personal effects coverage that may be part of the comprehensive but that has minimal limits.

Default personal effects coverage on our Progressive Policy was $1,000. Since we often travel with valuable astronomy equipment, we customized our RV coverage to have the maximum Personal Effects coverage of $10,000. Even this often won't cover all of the equipment we often carry with us but it's the best we can do as part timers. I think full timers can select higher coverage than this. We have a deductible of only $100 on our personal effects coverage.

Though there are minimal personal effects inside it when the motorhome is on the pad at our home, we also have a wireless motion detector in the RV which has sufficient range to set off the monitored alarm system for the house.

All of that said, we've never had problems of any kind with theft from our RV's or campsites at home or away.

I will say thus about licked doors or windows. I was in a campground last month and a guy was locked out of his unit. The door latch broke. I got a putty knife and opened his luck window in a couple of seconds and we boosted his grandson in who walked thru and opened the door. He called a mobile guy to fix it and was told it us a common problem.

One of the key elements in home security - and a sad fact - is that you need to make your home harder to get into than the next one. What you want to do is require time - time in which they risk being seen or caught. As that risk for them goes up, the odds of them trying go down. They want to get in and out fast. They will pick the targets that best facilitate that.

Changing from the common CH751 on your storage bays means that they if they really want in, they have to take more time and employ other tools to get in. Most likely they will move to the next target unless they are specifically after something they know you have. Practicing OPSEC is important. NRA stickers on your truck?

An alarm system is also a good thing. You want it to make noise and attract attention - flashing strobe lights help here too. Remember, they don't want to risk being seen/caught. If they manage to get a door open and there is an alarm loud enough to wake the dead going off, they will be much less likely to stick around long enough to take anything. They will want to get away.

I also recommend having an alarm that can be armed in a "home mode", where any motion detectors are ignored. That way, your outer perimeter can be covered while you are free to move about inside. If you are camping or full timing with kids, they can be a target just as much as your belongings. If the family of Elizabeth Smart had used their alarm that night, a whole lot of pain and suffering would have been avoided.

Lastly, if it does come to confronting someone in your domicile, I recommend being properly equipped, trained, and mentally and physically prepared to do what is required to defend yourself and your family.

16 years of full-timing and moving constantly along with boondocking miles from civilization.....we've never had a problem. It's not something we would worry about.

Make sure your insurance covers theft from an RV. We had insurance but found we had no coverage. The typical coverage is from a homeowners policy and not through the RV insurance. If you are a full timer and have no homeowners, be sure your RV insurance is for a full timer. National Interstate has good full time policies. Most of the rest of the companies do not provide theft coverage.

Unless one of the exclusions in your policy for theft claim is that the door must be kept locked the insurance company would have to pay. You will have your deductible to pay
Don

If there is no damage from a forced entry, it is a lot harder to get a claim through. Mike Wendland mentioned that.

If I have to store my rig in a high crime area, I'd leave things latched (but unlocked), notes stating that, and a dud TV or laptop in one of the bays. That way, the local tweakers get off with something, and don't trash the rig.

However, since I store my rig well out of the city limits, it stays locked. I lock the doors, storage compartment, and have locks (security chains + ABUS padlocks) for the wheels, as well as a "token" hitch lock just to show a would-be thief the rig isn't theirs. This helps with theft of the vehicle.

Now, burglary is a different story. I leave things locked and park my rig miles from a paved road just because I don't feel like surrendering and letting the meth-heads have their own "pick and pull" of their own choosing. Since cars and RVs are easy targets (just smash the glass), the only real method of defense is strongboxes that are well bolted down. For example, ConsoleVault for the middle compartment, and a Tuffy under rear seat lockbox for under the seat. Since it will take a good amount of time with hand tools to get past those, it helps keep the valuable stuff away from the smash/grabbers.

In general, if it is lockable, I lock it. Just old habit from growing up when Austin's economy was in the dumps, and if it wasn't not just bolted, but welded down, it was gone.