Travel Trailer Insurance Cost And Quotes
This is a study I update twice per month about travel trailer insurance cost, analysis of their quotes and associated products.
I called several major companies that you see on TV: Geico, AllState, State Farm, Progressive and Nationwide, and I also obtained quotes from their website and from the phone.
To complete this benchmark analysis, I also called Good Sam’s and Foremost that are not first-tier insurance companies but are considered niche RV specialized companies.
It is always better to retrieve quotes directly from their website and not by the phone. The process is much faster on their website and you have more options to customize your request. In the phone, they just try to make it simple so you purchase.
I try to keep this travel trailer insurance cost study it as consistent as possible across all insurance companies. So we have for all of them the following categories compared thoroughly.
- Comprehensive coverage.
- Collision coverage.
- Personal effects.
- Roadside assistance.
- Liability.
- Vanishing deductibles that affect travel trailer insurance cost.
These categories are explained in detail below
Travel Trailer Insurance Cost: The RV Insured
When I called these RV insurance companies I asked specifically for insurance quotes for the following features in the insured object and the following attributes in the policyholder. These values can help you to calculate what applies in your case.
So below is my detailed travel trailer insurance cost request. I want an insurance for the following:
- Full-time RVers insurance without permanent RV surface lot: This is a full-time RVer that changes RV parks frequently.
- Travel trailer of 30´ thirty feet in length: Not an a-frame camper, not a teardrop camper or a pop-up camper. Not too large. Many companies will not insure an RV of more than 36 feet in length. If it is too large, only RV insurance specialists insure them and I wanted first-tier companies to quote me.
- Three years old: So it is kind of a new RV, but not quite old or very used. I wanted to retrieve a pretty decent quote. With only three years we avoid weird and unjustified depreciation curves handled by RV insurance companies.
- Excellent driving history in the prospective policyholder. I have never been involved in an accident. We also have a very good credit score so that helps us. Therefore, these results will be different for many of the readers of this article. I asked for prices in Indiana. Results may vary in some states, but in online quotes, they keep very constant from state to state.
Travel Trailer Insurance Cost: The Quotes
Quote #1 from Nationwide (Allied Nationwide in some states): Nationwide actually quoted me for the whole entire year five hundred and seventy-five dollars ($ 575). That is forty-seven dollars a month ($ 47). As usual in the last couple of years, this is the lowest travel trailer insurance cost retrieved.
Quote #2 from Progressive (for non-USAA customers): Now with Progressive, they quoted me a total of eight hundred and seventeen dollars ($ 817) for the whole year if I pay it in installments. This means I pay sixty-eight dollars ($ 68) a month. If instead, I was willing to pay the whole cost upfront, without utilizing installments, it would have been seven hundred and forty-four dollars ($ 744) for the year. As usual, it is more expensive to pay monthly than it is to just get it all out of the way. If you are a non USAA customer it is a bit more expensive. So I included both quotes.
Quote #3 from Geico: Their total quote was eight hundred and eight dollars ($ 808) for the entire year which is 67 dollars ($ 67) a month.
Quote #4 from Good Sam´s: The final quote was $ 1280 per year, which is very high. It is 106 dollars a month.
Quote #5 from Foremost: They offered a quote of 821 dollars for the entire year. You can pay in installments of $ 71 per month. There is a huge discount of 12 % in the travel trailer insurance cost if you also purchase their life insurance policy, a product line where they are specialists.
Quote #6 from Progressive (For USAA customers): USAA does not have RV insurance, therefore, you are forwarded to their business partner Progressive. I had the same price as described above without USAA partnership, but with a discount of 11% in the final travel trailer insurance cost. As a consequence, if you are a USAA customer, Progressive could be the best option if your trailer is very large.
Quotes #7 and #8: Allstate and State Farm do not offer RV insurance for full-time RVers anymore, so for this article update, they are not included in the quote.
Travel Trailer Insurance Cost Benchmarking: How Were The Insurance Quotes Retrieved?
To maintain consistency in my analysis, I investigated all the RV insurance companies, the same categories. So let´s see all these categories:
Collision Coverage:
With collision coverage, this is going to cover you in the event that something collides with your RV, or your RV collides with something else. Therefore, if a vehicle hits your RV or you hit another vehicle, that is where collision coverage is going to come in.
In the situation where the covered event occurs, if you were to sustain damages from something like that occurring and you had a $500 deductible, you would pay for the first five hundred dollars worth of damages. Then your insurance company would step in and pay anything in excess over that.
Comprehensive coverage
The comprehensive coverage will cover things that are more out of your control such as bad weather, hail storms, flooding, and fire. It may also cover an animal running out in front of your vehicle and you hit it. So that is what comprehensive coverage embodies.
Furthermore, another aspect you want to keep in mind with the comprehensive coverages, is that it is not going to cover events like rodent damage to your RV or heavy weight of snow on your RV, your tires blowing out, a tire puncture. Comprehensive coverage is not going to cover wear and tear of the vehicle.
These aforementioned events are usually under the umbrella of your responsibility. However, always read your own policy contract as this can differ from contract to contract. More protection means usually a higher travel trailer insurance cost.
Personal Effects Coverage
We study now the personal effects coverage. I have obtained coverage up to $2,000 which means that $2,000 worth of our belongings inside the RV and on the space occupied by the RV would be covered, as far as our clothes, jewelry, and any kind of electronic equipment that we have inside the RV were covered up to $2,000 worth.
Roadside Assistance Coverage
Another category is roadside assistance. Regarding roadside assistance I obtained the coverage for up to $2,000. This is going to cover you in the event that you break down, you have a flat tire, you need to be towed or something happens with your RV during the road journey and you need to stay in a hotel for an extended period of time. This category is going to help pay for the food and lodging.
Liability Coverage Insurance
Liability insurance coverage category now. When I called these companies, I received one hundred thousand coverage per person ($ 100,000) and three hundred thousand liability coverage per event ($ 300,000). All companies were moving near these values.
Liability insurance will cover any property damage or bodily injury of a person while they are on your RV lot. This perimeter represents that you are only responsible for anything that happens within 25 ft of your RV.
If you look at your RV policy there is a section called Vacation Liability (if you are not a full-time RVer) or Fulltimers Package (if you are a full timer and that is the package you purchased) that will tell you exactly what you are covered for.
You will see that the degree of coverage will influence the travel trailer insurance cost.
Thus, while you are out camping, if somebody´s child ran through your a lot slipped and fell (bodily injury), then you would be able to cover their medical bills of up to a hundred thousand dollars per person or three hundred thousand dollars per occurrence, as explained above.
Vanishing deductibles
Some of the companies offered vanishing deductibles, others did not. A helpful category if your driving history is good over time. This scoring process can diminish a lot the travel trailer insurance cost that you pay yearly.
Let´s discuss the price of full-time RVers insurance and the experience I had when I called around to all these companies.
Nationwide and Nationwide Allied: The “Agreed Value” Policy
Although their name is Nationwide they are not they actually told me that they do not offer insurance in the state of Indiana as Nationwide but as Allied Nationwide. Not just RV insurance but auto insurance as well, etcetera.
However, Allied is also a part of Nationwide. Therefore, Allied does offer insurance in the state of Indiana and it is in this study list included too.
Nationwide is willing to enter into a modality of insurance agreement called Agreed Value. In Agreed Value, the travel trailer insurance coverage is furnished for a predetermined amount settled upon by the RV insurance company and the insured subject.
What Agreed Value means in practice for you and me, is that they are agreeing that if your RV is in a total loss situation, they will pay what you paid for your RV.
In lieu of this Agreed Value principle, is the principle of Actual Cash Value. This Actual Cash Value is that they pay you the replacement cost minus the depreciation. In practice, for us RVers, this means that most insurance companies, and every one after Nationwide that I called, will only pay what your RV is worth considering depreciation.
Likewise, with the Actual Cash Value principle, that I could avoid with Nationwide, in the situation that the covered event results in a total loss, if you have paid twenty thousand dollars for the RV and it is now only worth fifteen thousand dollars as a consequence of RV depreciation, that is all the RV insurance company is going to pay you. Therefore, you will remain uncovered for the other five thousand dollars.
As explained above, Nationwide is offering the Agreed Value principle and they provided me a quote in to include the Agreed Value clause. It took about 24 minutes to obtain the quote through them through the phone, and only six to obtain it online. I considered that this was pretty fast, but it was faster through the website, that the same quote took six minutes.
Nationwide offered me also three different types of full-timers insurance that we analyze below: seasonal, travel, and non-travel, as follows below:
- Seasonal: Seasonal is the type of insurance that is for people who have a main home. They live in a home six months out of the year and then they travel the other six months out of the year.
- Travel: Travel type is that you live in your RV full-time 365 days a year, so you are a full-time RVer, and you travel the nation, the world, whatever you are going to do in your RV, but you are not stationary. You do not remain in a single place.
- Non Travel: Non-travel is where you actually live in your RV on a permanent lot. The RV does not move from the lot, that can be a campground or an RV park. So this would be non-travel.
Nationwide Travel Trailer Insurance Cost
Hence, with Nationwide I obtained the following
- Comprehensive coverage and the collision coverage with a five hundred dollar deductible, meaning, I am willing to pay for the first five hundred dollars worth of damages.
- Personal effects coverage: I got personal effects coverage to cover two thousand dollars.
- Roadside assistance coverage: Roadside assistance coverage is included, which covers two thousand dollars.
- Liability coverage: And finally, then liability coverage insurance in case somebody became injured on our lot surface while we are out camping. The coverage for this item is of a hundred thousand dollars per person and three hundred thousand dollars per occurrence.
Vanishing deductibles
Nationwide has anyway a vanishing deductible. In their case is that within 31 days of your policy contract they take $100 off of that deductible.
Therefore, within 31 days, your deductible goes from being five hundred dollars to four hundred dollars and then, every year that you are accident-free, it goes down another hundred dollars.
Thus, within your first year, you are already down to a three hundred dollar deductible. That is really incredible and very good.
Nationwide quote:
Nationwide actually quoted me for the whole entire year five hundred and seventy-five dollars ($ 575). That is forty-seven dollars a month ($ 47) of travel trailer insurance cost.
Progressive And The “Actual Cash Value” Policy
Progressive does the Actual Cash Value policy. As in Nationwide, and to do a proper benchmarking of my travel insurance cost analysis, I asked for the same coverages as in Nationwide. Progressive asked if I was a USAA member because I would get a discount in that case.
Likewise, in Progressive, they also asked how many years of experience do I have pulling an RV. This question was unique from Nationwide. In Nationwide they did not ask me any of that, so for people who do not have any experience pulling an RV this would affect them in the price, for example via a discount in the total travel trailer insurance cost if you do have experience.
In Progressive with comprehensive coverage and collision coverage, I received a $500 deductible. Personal effects covering $3,000. Roadside service in the United States and Canada and then $2,000 which would cover any hotels or food that you need in the event that you do break down and you need to stay somewhere for the night.
They have deductibles that reduce by 25% every year that you are accident-free. Therefore, within the first year 125 dollars, second-year another $125. So by the end of four years, you could be deductible free and in the event, something happens, Progressive will cover everything.
Progressive Quote
Now with Progressive; they quoted me a total of eight hundred and seventeen dollars ($ 817) for the whole year if I pay it in installments. This means I pay sixty eight dollars ($ 68) a month.
If instead, I was willing to pay the whole cost upfront, without utilizing installments, it would have been seven hundred and forty four dollars ($ 744) for the year. As usual, it is more expensive to pay monthly than it is to just get it all out of the way. If you can do the extra effort, the travel trailer insurance cost will be much lower if you pay the entire year of coverage in advance.
Allstate RV Insurance
The next company I called was Allstate. Allstate stated (as in previous updates of this article), that they do not offer RV full-timers insurance. So once more, Allstate is out of the list for now.
State Farm RV Insurance
The next one I called is State Farm. With State Farm, they forward you to a local agent. This local agent said that they do not offer full-timers RV insurance in most of the states.
Travel Trailer Insurance Cost From Geico: Discounts for CDL Holders
I called Geico after that and they asked me something that none of the companies asked me, that is if I normally utilize a specialized hitch, stabilizer, or weight distribution system and I answered yes to all of these questions.
Obviously, as we describe thoroughly in this article, with a weight distribution system in place, you avoid sway and have less risk.
They also asked me if I have a commercial driving license (CDL license) which I found tobe interesting, so I am assuming that they offer discounts for this because if you have it, it is a lower risk for them. It would be a more experienced RV driver and therefore, a less risky one.
With Geico, I received comprehensive and collision coverage with a $500 deductible. In the personal effects category, they offered $5,000. They have included $1,000 in emergency roadside service as well.
Geico also offered vacation liability of $100,000 in. However, if I did my research right, vacation liability is for people who are not RV full timing, so I am not sure if she just misquoted me or if maybe they don’t offer the full timers package liability or maybe that is just what they call it so it’s $100,000 for the total occurrence.
The other companies instead offer the “100 300 combination”. This is 100,000 per person 300,000 per occurrence.
Geico also offers, like their competitors, hotel, and travel expenses included in the event that your RV breaks down and you need to stay overnight somewhere. They offered this lodging within only 1,001 dollars, so they did not have the two thousand dollar limit that I was previously offered
Geico Quote
Their total quote for the travel trailer insurance cost was eight hundred and eight dollars ($ 808) for the entire year which is 67 dollars ($ 67) a month.
Good Sam´s: Expensive Option
As soon as I described my requirement, that for all companies was the same, a travel trailer about thirty feet in length, and three years old, he started to push me to insure also the towing vehicle, my truck. I said “no, thank you”, just the travel trailer for now.
He insisted on the advantages, and I repeated that I only wanted the travel trailer insurance cost in the form of a quote.
Then, he started asking me about my bodily injury limit. On your vehicle, your bodily injury limits are for the situation you injure somebody and the accidented person has to go to the hospital.
He wanted to know what I had on the truck because my property damage could not exceed my bodily injury limit which is completely wrong, and actually, both coverage items are not that related.
Most of the companies I called were around the $800 annual range except for Nationwide, who quoted me around the five hundred, which was pretty low. But here, the travel trailer insurance cost is the highest.
Good Sam´s Quote
So I said, please stop arguing with me all I want is the quote for the full-time RVers travel trailer insurance cost for the RV described.
He finally gave me the quote and with collision and comprehensive coverage and a $500 deductible, personal effects of three thousand dollars. Also including emergency roadside service hotel and travel up to fifteen hundred dollars.
Finally, also liability protection which is if somebody gets injured on our property.
So the final quote was $ 1280 per year, which is very high. It is 106 dollars a month.
Foremost RV Insurance: An Interesting Option If Combined With Other Products
I went also to Foremost, and I obtained again the same coverages, same deductibles and they offered a quote of 821 dollars of travel trailer insurance cost for the entire year.
So they were also kind of comparable to Progressive. The only difference is that they asked me if I had a life insurance policy of at least $50,000.
I had no idea why they asked that or what does the life insurance has to do with this. They explained to me that they offer discounts for having both products with them.
Travel Trailer Insurance Cost Study: Conclusions
In this update of the article, Nationwide or Allied Nationwide keeps the first place as the most convenient option: it is the cheapest, so it s the lowest travel trailer insurance cost in our list, it does not require a combination with other products, and has very good deductibles.
The second option, not far away, is Progressive, for the case that you are a USAA customer. There is an important synergy if you are also a member of the USAA that has an interesting discount as a result.
The third option is for Foremost, but only for the case when you purchase some other products from their portfolio, such as the insurance of the towing vehicle, so your truck, or a life insurance policy.
