How to insure an RV for full-time living

A standard RV policy is written for a vehicle used on weekends and holidays, with a home somewhere else that carries the household's liability and contents coverage. When the RV becomes the only residence, that other home is gone, and so is the homeowners or renters policy that used to sit behind the RV. A full-timer's policy has to do both jobs: insure a vehicle on the road and insure a household that lives in it, parks it at campgrounds, invites guests inside and keeps everything it owns aboard.

Carriers handle this with a full-timer endorsement or a dedicated full-time RV product, and the details vary widely between them. Full-timers are a common sight across the region, wintering near Yuma, Quartzsite and Lake Havasu, spending summers in the mountains of Utah and Idaho, and passing through Nevada between them. This guide covers what to gather, how to build the coverage, and what to check before selling the house.

What to gather

The carrier will ask how you live, not just what you drive.

• The RV's year, make, model, VIN, class and purchase price, and the same for any tow vehicle or towed car.
• A written inventory of what you will keep aboard: electronics, tools, bikes, jewellery, firearms, medical equipment and anything of unusual value.
• Your intended domicile state and address, which will be on your driver's licence, registration and voter record.
• Your travel pattern: months spent in each state, whether you will stay at long-term sites, and whether you will work from the RV.
• Your current auto, homeowners or renters, and umbrella declarations pages.
• The lender's requirements if the RV is financed.

Step one: tell the carrier the RV is your residence

Disclose full-time use when you apply. A recreational RV policy may define the vehicle as used for pleasure and exclude or restrict coverage for full-time occupancy, and a carrier that discovers the true use after a claim can deny it. Carriers that write full-timers ask about it directly and price for it, and the full-timer endorsement is typically inexpensive relative to what it adds.

Domicile matters as much as disclosure. Your policy is written under the insurance laws of your domicile state, and carriers rate by that address. Full-timers often choose a domicile for tax, registration or mail-forwarding reasons; make sure your chosen address is one the carrier will accept, that your licence and registration match it, and that you are not claiming residence in a state you rarely visit in a way that an underwriter would question.

Step two: replace the homeowners liability you gave up

Auto liability on the RV covers what happens while it is being driven. It does not necessarily cover a guest who trips on the RV steps at a campground, a dog bite at the campsite, or a grill fire that spreads to a neighbouring rig. A homeowners policy used to handle those. A full-timer endorsement adds personal liability and medical payments to others for the time the RV is parked and used as a residence, much as a homeowners policy would.

Check the limit and then check any umbrella. Umbrella carriers require the underlying policies to carry specific limits, and an umbrella written when you owned a house may have depended on a homeowners policy you no longer have. Tell the umbrella carrier the RV is now the residence and confirm what it requires underneath.

Step three: insure the RV and everything in it

Full-timers carry their whole household aboard, so the physical damage side needs more than a recreational policy provides.

• Total loss replacement or agreed value on a newer RV, so a total loss in the first years pays for a comparable new unit rather than depreciated value. Actual cash value on a large RV can fall well short of the loan.
• Personal effects coverage sized to your inventory. Recreational policies often include a small limit; full-timers usually need much more, with replacement cost where available.
• Scheduled coverage for jewellery, cameras, firearms or instruments above the policy's per-item sublimits.
• Emergency expense coverage for lodging, meals and transport if the RV is disabled far from home, since there is no house to go back to.
• Roadside assistance that handles a vehicle of your RV's size and weight, including heavy-duty towing.
• Attached accessories such as awnings, satellite dishes and solar panels, which may need to be listed.

Step four: check the gaps unique to life on the road

A towable trailer or fifth wheel gets its liability on the road from the tow vehicle's auto policy, so the truck's limits must be adequate for the combined rig, while the trailer policy covers its physical damage and, with a full-timer endorsement, the parked liability. A towed car behind a motorhome needs its own policy. If you work from the RV, business equipment and business liability are generally excluded from personal policies and may need a separate home-based business or small commercial policy.

Consider climate. Long winter stays in northern Utah or Idaho mean freeze damage to plumbing, which some policies exclude unless the RV was heated or winterised. Summer in the low desert means heat damage to tyres, roofs and batteries, which is maintenance rather than a covered loss. Flooding at a riverside campground and wildfire near forest sites are both covered perils under comprehensive on most RV forms, but confirm it.

Common mistakes

Full-timers who have a claim tend to run into these.

• Keeping a recreational RV policy after the house is sold.
• Dropping the homeowners or renters policy without replacing its liability.
• Carrying the default personal effects limit on a household's entire contents.
• Choosing actual cash value on a new, financed RV.
• Letting an umbrella's underlying requirements go unmet.
• Working from the RV without asking whether business equipment is covered.

A worked example

Suppose a couple from Boise sell their house and buy a $200,000 motorhome to live in full-time, with $40,000 of belongings aboard. The recreational quote they first receive includes $5,000 of personal effects coverage and actual cash value on the RV, for $2,200 a year. At a campground in Arizona, an electrical fire destroys the motorhome eighteen months later. Under actual cash value it might pay $160,000 on a unit they still owe $180,000 on, and $5,000 for their belongings. Now suppose instead they bought a full-timer policy for $2,900 a year with total loss replacement, $40,000 of replacement cost personal effects, emergency expense and $300,000 of full-timer liability. It pays for a comparable new motorhome, their belongings and a month of lodging. The figures are hypothetical; the replacement and contents coverages decided whether they could keep living on the road.

How to use this

Before you sell the house, send us the RV's details, your inventory, your planned domicile and your current policies. We will compare full-timer coverage across the carriers we represent in Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Idaho, line up the tow vehicle, towed car and umbrella, and tell you what the recreational policy lacks. If your current carrier's full-timer endorsement already covers it, we will say so.