I just got through several days of quote shopping, after National Interstate increased my premium by almost 50% despite no claims for 5 years.
Depending on the value of your RV and the amount of personal effects coverage you want, you might, before getting into the nitty gritty of quotes, ask if there are limits. For example, the policy I have with Blue Sky limits personal effects coverage to 20% of the value of the RV. And National Interstate used to do that, but I believe they changed it a couple of years ago. I don't know about the others.
At first I thought the 20% limit would be too low, but then I studied how personal effects coverage works, and I can live with the 20% because...
I checked my previous National Interstate policy and my current one with Blue Sky and neither would pay more than $1000 for any single item under the general personal effects coverage. And they consider a group of items, for example golf clubs, a "collection" and value them at their total, not each individual item.
For items worth more than $1000, to be fully covered I have to pay for separate coverage on them and list those items individually, as "valuable personal property." (The premium is about 1% of the items' value.) So I'm insuring them separately to have them fully covered, and that takes them out of the pool of "personal effects coverage" that is limited to 20% of the RV's value.
Something else I found out is that personal effects coverage is actually limited to 25% of the stated coverage if the items are away from the insured vehicle. If an item is scheduled as valuable personal property, it's covered 100% no matter where it is. Except maybe in a storage unit--I don't have one so I didn't check that part out.
At 20% of the RV's value, I'm underinsured if the whole thing goes up in flames and everything is destroyed, but my premium with Blue Sky is more than $700 less than National Interstate, and the National Interstate premium doesn't include any valuable personal effects coverage. So I'll use that $700+ to self-insure, for this year anyway.
Something you didn't ask about but might be interested in--I had my policy with National Interstate through Miller Insurance. Back when I got it, I got a quote directly from National Interstate and Miller's quote was less, with the same insurance company.
The same thing happened this year. I got a quote from Blue Sky directly, and also a quote from Thum Insurance. The Thum Insurance quote was substantially lower than from Blue Sky directly. I was impressed with the service I got from Thum--the quote they emailed me was broken down by categories (some companies just sent a total), included everything I indicated (Geico left out fulltimer liability!), and we corresponded efficiently through email until I wanted to have a conversation about exactly how personal effects coverage worked, and this was all explained on the phone.
I really liked how Progressive's online quote thing worked; the premium wasn't broken down but you could monkey with the coverages and see the price difference and figure it out. However, their quote was almost twice the quote from Thum, and the reason I had National Interstate was because several years ago, Progressive jacked my premium up beyond belief so I'm not going to go with them again unless I have a real good reason.
Oh, and one more thing I found out: Blue Sky has a Blue Sky RV Motor Club that provides towing coverage if the vehicle is disabled because of breakdown or accident, and it's handled by calling the number and getting a tow and it's covered.
Just like with Coach Net, only Coach Net's coverage is limited. This is from an email from them: "In case of a mechanical disablement due to an accident, vandalism, or a vehicle specific fire which are normally covered by motor vehicle insurance, you must pay the service provider, submit the bill to your insurance company and then, if the insurance company refuses payment of the charge, upon submission of the service provider invoice and a copy of the insurance letter specifying the reason for rejecting the claim, NMC will reimburse for covered roadside services up to a limit of $500 per incident. All claims are processed in 30 days."
However, I was concerned because only my RV is insured with Blue Sky, and the car is insured elsewhere and I want mechanical breakdown towing coverage on the car, which I would have with Coach Net. But Blue Sky covers all household members and all vehicles, just like Coach Net. And Blue Sky's premium is $52.
