Does Recreational Vehicle Insurance Cover My Belongings?

For some of us, a recreational vehicle is a fun piece of equipment to take out on weekends. For others, it’s our home, and our whole lifestyle. Or at the very least, a recreational vehicle is a home away from home for several months at a time. If your motorhome is as much home as it is motor, then it is reasonable to hope your recreational vehicle insurance will afford your RV some of the same protections that home insurance affords your home. In other words: It should protect your belongings. 

• Home insurance will generally protect anything you have in your RV, just as it would protect anything you have in your car. Assuming you have everything documented, and your insurance company informed, this is a fair expectation. 

• Your home insurance provider is likely to drop your plan if you spend more than a month at a time leaving your home unoccupied. You can solve this problem by enlisting house sitters to ensure that someone is on the premises should something happen. But, if you spend half of the year traveling with nobody back home, you can’t expect home insurance to protect the possessions in your RV. 

So, this would seem to necessitate that, at the very least, a full-time RVer — someone who may go years at a time on the road — would want their RV insurance to provide the same protection as home insurance. 

Personal Effects Insurance 
Luckily, if you don’t have home insurance to protect your belongings, your personal effects coverage on your RV policy will help you to cover the value of your possessions. This is an important provision for RV owners. For most people, possessions stolen from a vehicle or lost to an accident may include an iPad and a laptop. For someone who lives in an RV, those possessions may include everything they own, so you want to make sure that it’s covered.