"RV" Insurance for Truck Campers?

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COCJ

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 18, 2014
Posts
78
Location
Montrose, CO
Has anybody found an insurance company that will insure a truck and camper as an RV? I checked with a couple and they want to insure the truck as a truck with a rider for the camper. When you are talking a newer F350 dually the premium is pretty steep. My rig is only used for camping and the camper never comes off the truck. It seems ridiculous to have to pay $1,000 plus a year for something that only gets used an average of 2,000 miles a year and is sitting in the driveway 99% of the time. You can insure a Class C motorhome for about half of that.
 
I have a rider on my State Farm policy and the camper only adds $200/year. Plus it is also insured when off the truck.
 
I We also have a rider on our auto policy, though ours is with Farmers.  As we are now full time we will be looking at other options.
 
Haven't personally dealt with it, but I would guess that one of the small companies that specialize in RV insurance - like Foremost or Blue Sky, to name two - would be a better bet than mainstream companies like State Farm or Geico, who primarily sell car insurance, but who "also" sell RV insurance as a less profitable sideline.
 
If you're talking $1,000 a year for just the camper, then you should look at other insurers.  If that's for the truck and camper, then maybe you're not going to find a much better deal.  Still, I'd get a quote from GEICO.  I had them for 10 years and recently switched to the Auto Club.  Both insure RV's and both are reasonably priced.  However location can have a significant effect on premium and some companies are lower in territories that other shy away from.  Get a couple of quotes and compare. 
 
I don't know of any company that would insure it on any basis other than truck insurance plus camper rider, essentially no different than a travel trailer. You say you don't drive the truck much, but they can't count on that. At best, you can hope they have a rate for low yearly mileage.

Yeah, a Class C, even a larger one, might be cheaper. The insurance business works on statistics, and they have statistics to show that motorhomes have a low risk rate and average low mileage, whereas pick-up truck statistics are the opposite. I don't think you can win that one.  About the only hope would be to get your state DMV to classify the vehicle as a motorhome rather than a truck (assuming they have those categories), but that seems like a slim chance.

I have an old "beater" SUV that I drive maybe 800 miles/year, and I still pay $400 per year for the required liability insurance.  It doesn't get used at all 4-5 months per year, so I can suspend the liability for that time and save about $150. Not all states allow that, but maybe it would help you some.
 
Maybe your state will re-licence your rig as a motorhome if the camper never comes off. Sean is on this forum and I remember him doing something like that here in Ca. and the fee's were much less, maybe he'll chime in. Not sure if your insurance will recognize the reclassing from your DMV,,,gregg
 
I think the problem is that the camper is not a permanent part of the truck, no matter how often it's removed or not. The issue for the insurance company is likely that it CAN be easily removed and the truck used as a separate vehicle, unlike Class A and Class C motorhomes.
 
As we are now full-timing and both our auto policies and truck camper policies are due to expire, we revisited this topic with a couple of insurance agencies.  Our previous insurance while recreational users was with Farmers who insured the truck and added the TC as a rider.  In researching this to obtain insurance in SD where we are now domiciled, it was explained to me by a couple insurance agents, while some companies will only write the TC as a rider on the truck policy, it is not a requirement and indeed separate policies can be obtained for the vehicle and TC.  We ended up going through our credit union's independent insurance agent who received the best result from Progressive.  We have two separate policies, a vehicle and a truck camper policy.  Additionally, we were able to have the TC insured for full-time. 
 
We are on our second truck camper insured thru Progressive.  Our truck is insured separately thru USAA.  Camping World insures truck campers but requires the truck to also be insured thru them as well.

We have not had any claims with Progressive for either of our truck campers, but had several claims with them for our 5th wheel which we full-timed in for four years.  They were absolutely fantastic to deal with for each claim.
 
Seems like a lot of money to have tied up for 2000 miles a year.  Is there a better overall solution?  I mean to rethink from the beginning. 
 
Yesterday I finally got around to call Allstate  and added the camper on the truck policy. 24.00 every six months, its a rider on the truck policy. They consider it one unit and only cover it when its on the truck. If I damage something, its covered under the comprehensive. If someone hits me causing damage, then its covered as if its part of the truck. I haven't done much research on this yet, but I do feel better I have some protection until I find out more on the subject,,,gregg
 
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