After 2 years on the road, we had our first “incident” with the RV which required putting it into an RV repair shop- man what a blow! We were just getting so excited about going into year three and BAM (literally) we had a minor accident.
There are so many emotions that go into losing your home and not knowing what will happen next, all of which are smaller in the big scheme of things- I tend to look at RV Life as “Is anyone hurt?” and if that’s a no, truly its minor. After the shock though of needing to clear out all your belongings, find new housing and grapple with the unknown wears off the next step is, finances!
This is such a huge point- so much so that I am taking the time to write this blog about it, in hopes to help all of you to be prepared. So, what is RV Insurance? It is essentially like car insurance but on your tiny home on wheels. You will want to know a few details though that could really help you if you needed to file a claim.
Let’s start with what would be considered the most obvious- YES, you do need insurance on your RV. I am shocked with how many RVers do not have insurance! You need it and should absolutely purchase it! Secondly, look at your coverage. Are you a full-time RV family or part time, those things will make a difference. Do you have coverage for items such as housing while you are without your home and how much does that cover? For us it was a one-time payment of $750.00, that did not get us very far as I am sure you can imagine.
A few other things of note, if you are a fulltime family are you in an all-season RV? Is your RV over the weight limit? Do you still have a manufacture warranty. These are all great things to know going into your RV journey or even if you are RVing now check on these things.
So why is Insurance important? Because just like a home or automobile something that you feel may be very minor probably financially is indeed, NOT. For us we had what we thought was minor damage to the back end of our RV, come to find out it has been in the shop over a month and is roughly 20K in damage. I don’t know about you, but we do not want to spend 20K repairing our RV so thank goodness for our insurance. We did have a deductible but that was a lot less than 20k.
Unfortunately, as you can imagine with a situation like this you are incurring added expenses that you may not have originally accounted for. For example, here are a few expenses that have happened to us, let’s start with the biggest! Finding housing, this is not as easy as you may think, we have 3 children and 3 dogs so hotels are out and AirBnB’s can add up fast- one month in the location we are at was just shy of 6k. Cancelling RV Resorts, as many of you know most RV Resorts have moved to a no refund policy especially if you are cancelling last minute- this is an additional loss of money that you may not have planned on. Work, if you are like me and your work happens to be based around you travelling or your RV you may find yourself out of work. Lastly, a few random items we had were, tickets to a venue we lost out on and a refund for our daughter’s birthday party. These are all financial impacts that of course are hard so remember a savings account is key in RV Life.
Lastly, the emotional toll of being displaced is tough there is just no other way to say it! Originally, we really tried to lean into the thought of, “this is what is supposed to happen” and truthfully in my heart I really do have blind faith in this journey and believe that we are supposed to be off the road right now. The reality is though, we had to cancel a birthday party for our daughter which is tough on a kid, I had to move medical appointments and we had to spend money that we had saved to use for other things.
I share this blog post not to scare you, but to prepare you! I still stand behind what we always say on YouTube which is don’t wait, go and do the things NOW and explore!
Stay Tuned for when we get back into our RV!
With Love,
