Touring Caravan Insurance

The average touring caravan insurance policy is made up of a number of different elements, and if you own a caravan you should be aware of these. These are Contents, Liability to the public, Damage and Loss, Continental use, Excess, and general exclusions. In this article, I am going to delve a little into each of these different parts of the policy.

Damage and Loss - this covers the caravan, normally up to its full value, for damage to or loss of the caravan. If you have a caravan normally up to 5 years old you can get new for old cover, which will provide you with a new caravan. Older caravans require Market Value cover, which means that if it needs replacing, it will be to the going value of your old caravan.

Contents and personal effects is often an optional extra, and is generally quite limited in coverage, so check what is covered. Normally excluded are money and credit cards, valuables, audio/video devices, bikes, phones, documents and computers. Forcible entry is also required to be able to make a claim, and also policies differ in whether they cover theft from awnings, trailer and toilet tents.

Liability to the public is to protect the owner in the case of injury or loss to the general public resulting from use of the caravan. This will often cover people the caravan is leant to, as long as it is not for business purposes or hired to them. The level of cover is normally between 1 and 2 million pounds, sometimes including costs, sometimes plus costs.

You must make sure you have continental use coverage if you are going to mainland Europe, as this doesn’t always come as a standard. Some policies will also offer repatriation of the caravan (up to its insured value) and roadside assistance (up to a maximum amount). A number of the former Soviet block states are not covered, among them Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.

The amount of any claim you must pay yourself before the insurance company are willing to part with any money is called the excess. To illustrate, if you made a claim for 500 and your excess was 200, then you would get 300 from the insurance company. If you up the amount of excess that you have on your policy, you will find that your policy will get cheaper.

General exclusions are a feature of all policies, and are generally very exceptional circumstances, however you should still be aware of them. Terrorism, pressure waves from supersonic aircraft, and hostilities to name a few, but be aware that use other than social, domestic and pleasure is excluded also. Often the general exclusions are fairly consistent between the different available caravan insurance policies.

As with most things in life, it always pays to shop around when looking for your touring caravan insurance.