Reader question:

I retired a couple of years before my husband did. Now that he’s retired, we want to take our RV around the country and see the sights that we never saw when we were younger and didn’t need glasses to see them! But can you use car insurance for an RV, or is there a special RV insurance? We want to be protected while we’re enjoying life.

Rebecca

Great question.

I’m not going to lead you wrong. You can get regular car insurance for your recreational vehicle, but it isn’t advisable. When you insure your RV with a typical car insurance policy, you will be covered for whatever that policy typically covers on a car. That will include, if you get comprehensive and collision as well as liability, the costs of damages and injuries to another driver if you crash, your own medical costs, cost of replacement or repairs in a crash, or theft, or storm. However, an RV is so much more than a car, and because of that it needs more protection.

Consider what an RV contains. A kitchen sink, a bedroom…These things aren’t going to be covered by your car insurance company if something goes wrong. This RV, for the period that you are traveling around the country, will be more like your portable house than your vehicle. It will probably contain plenty of valuable things that you cannot replace. While it is not recommended to take expensive things with you on a journey around the country in an RV, it is the case that even a set of dishes or a stereo system that will be loose in your RV cannot be replaced, and that can set you back.

That’s why you need to get recreational vehicle insurance. This is RV insurance, and it also covers things like trailers and snow mobiles, and more. So what does it offer that nothing else does?

• Home insurance like coverage.

Like your home insurance policy, an RV insurance policy will not just cover the vehicle itself, but also what’s inside it. So if you have your priceless DVD collection of your favorite actor’s films, you can rest assured that you will be compensated in the case of a disaster. A thing like a bed is not that easy to replace when you have just gone through an accident, and it’s especially hard to deal with things like this when you’re across the country.

• Traveling out of the U.S.A.

Normally when you travel to a different country, you have to get a new car insurance policy for your time there. However, most companies that off RV insurance extend their coverage to the neighboring countries of the U.S., so if you decide to hop over to the Canadian side of Niagra Falls or take a drive through Michoacan, you’ll be covered.

• Injuries.

Your health is more important than ever after you’re retired, and RV insurance protects that. It gives you more liability coverage than most car insurance policies so that you can cover the safety of all the people traveling with you.

• Total loss replacement.

Your RV will probably go through more wear and tear in much less time than will your car. You may use it less, but when you use an RV, it is driving more time on average than a regular vehicle and is subject to more extreme conditions. Luckily, RV insurance covers the replacement of an RV in the event of its loss.

It’s easy to get RV insurance rate quotes, and it only takes a few seconds online. It’s very important to have this if you ever intend to go a-wandering in your recreational vehicle. You might consider just adding it to your regular car insurance policy in order to save money, but this will only cost you more in the long run.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.