By Gail Marsh
We all agree that having RV insurance is a good idea. You never know what dangers await when traveling down the road. A tire suddenly goes flat. You hit a giant pothole. Another car attempts to cut in front of you and, just like that, you’re calling your insurance company! Honestly, who could relax if they traveled without insurance? Not me!
So, you bring the rig home. You winterize it and take it to storage. Then you get out your checkbook and get ready to pay monthly fees on an RV you don’t even use. Should you keep paying for RV insurance on a rig that simply sits for months at a time? Does that make financial sense? Maybe you store your camper in your own backyard. Is it safe to drop insurance if the rig sits there, unused, for up to half the year? These are questions many RVers wonder about – especially this time of year.
Things to consider
First, if you are making payments on your rig, you may not have a choice about retaining year-round insurance. The bank or lending institution will likely demand it until the rig is fully paid off. Check with your lending company as well as your insurance agent.
If you own your RV free and clear, you will want to consider potential dangers to your camper, even when it’s in a secure storage lot. While theft from a storage facility is rare, it does happen. So do fires and acts of nature. Often RVs are parked together side-by-side with very little room between the units. Your “storage neighbor” may accidentally bump your rig while maneuvering their boat or RV in or out of its storage spot. This is classified as “collision,” and without insurance, you may be on the hook for repairs.
You may think that storing your RV in the backyard means you can drop insurance for the months your family doesn’t use the rig. Not so fast! Wind, hail, and other inclement weather can damage your RV, and (you guessed it) the repairs are all on you if you’ve dropped insurance coverage for the winter.
Reduced insurance?
Some insurance companies offer a reduced rate for off-season months. It’s a good idea to closely check any reduced coverage policy. Talk to several insurance agents, too. Be sure you understand exactly what the reduced policy covers, as well as what is not included.
We’ve decided to keep full-year coverage on our RV fiver. At least for now. What about you? Tell us in the comments below.
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RVT1191
Once the Motor Home goes in our Barn 125 feet from the house, we drop the insurance. I would like to keep comprehensive on it, but the insurance company won’t do it, it is either full insurance or nothing. I figure the home owners insurance should cover all the vehicles and equipment stored in the barn eventually.
Ed you may want to check on that. Many homeowners policy’s only cover 10% of home value for other structures and contents. As in home value 400k/ garage 40k.
Ed, you may find your insurance won’t cover anything which has its own title. In our case, if it’s titled, whether it’s a motor vehicle, motorhome, travel trailer, or boat, it won’t be covered under our homeowner’s insurance or the umbrella policy we have in addition. You should check with your agent.
The thing I have against dropping our insurance while the trailer is parked next to the house is the loss of spontaneity. The big advantage of having our trailer feet from the house is that we can, at a moment’s notice, decide it’s time for a trip (if only to our favorite state park a scant 10 miles from home). We’ve done this many times over our 30 years of RVing. “Hey, let’s go to Washoe. Ok, let’s quick pack up some food and go”.
Many years ago my class C was in storage for only one week when it was broken into and completely wiped out. And I mean everything. Pots,pans,utensils, all electronics, even the fire extinguisher. Damage to skylite and shower where they came in from. Insurance covered 95% replacement and repairs. This was stored in an indoor location so we know it was an inside job. They wiped out every vehicle that was in the building including boats and cars.
I would check into your state laws. If the RV is plated doesn’t it have to be insured? If it is in storage does the facility require active insurance? Last month i paid my RV insurance. The original bill was ridiculous. I realized we had done a lot of international travel in 2024. When I actually figured out how much we used our RV in 2024 it came out to about 14 days total. Our 20 year old RV is stored on our property. I called our agent. I explained everything. They lowered our insurance by 1/3 with basically the same coverage and if the rig is totaled we will get the upper end of it’s value. Obviously with an older RV we have sunk a lot of money into upgrading.
The State of Nevada requires that you maintain liability insurance on any registered vehicle without lapse. We were insured with Allstate and when we received our renewal, it had gone up quite a bit from the previous year. The end of October came & I told him we have no insurance on the RV, he replied “we don’t need it while it is parked”. Two weeks later we purchased our new insurance policy with Progressive for a $700 a year savings. When we registered our vehicle in November, we received a letter from DMV that they could not verify our liability insurance for the 2 weeks and were charged a $250 fee
To continue, they suspended our registration until we paid the $250 fee to reinstate it.
I have the luxury of storing my 5th wheel in a dedicated, fully enclosed RV garage on my property. However, I do keep my insurance active year round. While it may save me a few hundred bucks to drop it for the off season months, I may need to move it, take it to the dealer or make a spur-of-the-moment trip.
Also, who can predict a crazy weather event or some other calamity. I have a lot invested in my beautiful rig.
Thank you, Gail! Ours is fully paid off. We use it all year and maintain insurance all year, too. Have a great week and safe travels! 🙂
Same here..
More RV damages occur during sitting/storage than on the road.
Can you afford the monetary loss if and when your RV is damaged or stolen when stored through no fault of your own?
That year long insurance payment might be the best BARGAIN you purchase all year!
Two TTs. The larger one is mostly stationary and used seasonally. We drop the collision portion of our insurance when at rest for long periods, but maintain all other coverage. We restore collision before moving. We use the smaller TT for travel (even when living in the larger TT) so have FT full-coverage. We have 2 vehicles; one left in the garage for up to 6 months. We drop the collision on that also, but keep the rest while stored.
I never thought of canceling my insurance when not using it, too much trouble. Sometimes I take it out for short trips at a moments notice, I like having that option. We recently had a hurricane that destroyed our barn, moved an outbuilding and severely damaged my RV, which was outside. Luckily my insurance payed to fix my RV.
USAA allows you to drop your premium to a storage rate…they do the same for vehicles. Of course if you are not military, or a veteran, you are SOL with USAA.
USAA now will insure family members, descendants, and some others affiliated with military members, so it may pay to check with them for eligibility.
But, USAA will not insure motorhomes
Hi, Mike. I just looked online and here’s what it says on the USAA website: “Whether you roam with a Travel Trailer, Motorhome, Pop-Up Camper, Slide On Camper, or Fifth Wheel Trailer, we can help you cover them. Save 5% with the USAA Insurance Agency and Progressive.” Have a great day. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
With a phone call to our insurance broker, we can switch to storage insurance or reactivate when we want to use our motor home. Deactivation for storage reduces our insurance cost.
I have my cars insured with USAA however, my ’87 El Camino is disabled due to an antifreeze leak right now, so I had USAA put a limited storage policy on it – they recommended that so I wouldn’t lose the two car discount. I had originally placed our motor home with USAA also, however, they sold that off to Progressive some years ago. While I have never had a claim on anything the rates seem to be fair – altho the car rates just went up and is due on 2 Feb. They sent me an 8.5×11″ notice to put in the El Camino indicating it has only a storage policy and not to drive it! I’ve been with USAA for about 40 years or more. I have not been able to find lower rates than Progressive on the m-h.
I had thought of insuring with USAA a few years ago. I found them to be unprofessional and rates higher than what I already had.
Just investigated rates full time like we’ve had fir 4 years vs part time which we are planning. The full time was $120 cheaper than part time…go figure. Also learned that your insurance may not cover your RV if on a consignment lot in consignment! We had no idea..just assumed paid premium equals covered. Maybe not!
We keep insurance policy active year round, natural disasters are far too common these days as well as increase in theft and vandalism, by id—ts, regardless of where rig is parked, and penalties imposed are meaningless (slap on a wrist) and victims suffer the consequences.
Check your storage contract, most require you to maintain insurance while on their property, in case of fire, damage, theft, etc…
We moved to AZ a year ago from WA and always had year round insurance. Due to the move we decided to take a year off from RVing and since our 22 ft. travel trailer is parked securely at home we let the insurance expire. We did save some money but when the temp got to 117 one day I began to worry a little. There were some RV fires here in Yuma. It was reinstated 3 months ago and we are back to RVing this month. So for $348 per year, less than $30 a month its really worth the peace of mind. After all that’s what insurance is about.
Here in Texas, we have interesting weather along with hail storms which can total an RV in one storm, so it is better to keep it covered. So far, we do not have volcanoes, yet.
i had my motor homes broken into in every “secure storage” area I have used. This in Las Vegas (twice), Tucson, Fort Worth, and in Phoenix over a 10 year period. And the storage companies do not give a flip or offer any assistance in mitigating the damages while it is in storage. Their quote” You have insurance and you signed our contract that protects us from you problems”.
Just keep liability and pip when in storage