Truck & camper Insurance/choice & purchase

[Madmountainman]

Ok, i'm slowly crawling through the minefield of acquiring some insurance... joy oh joy. I'm not quite there yet, but due to waiting on a call back, i'll post my progress so far.

LV, who i'm currently insured with, want £34 extra to cover a truck only till my policy expires in September. My current policy is circa £300, so quite good I think. However, they don't know what a demountable is, so their underwriters won't commit to providing insurance for the camper. However, my enquiry looks to have set some wheels in motion and they're looking into the demountable to see if it's a market they might offer a policy on. I've asked them to keep me appraised of any progress.

Camptons, cheapest so far for covering both with 10k miles at £450, so looking likely, but will need to add their recovery/breakdown to this total.

Awaiting a call back from Adrian Flux...

NFU!!! Just for the truck, £850 . We didn't pursue the quote any further than that.

Once AF have rung back, i'm going to give C&CC a ring for camper only and Crusader a shout as well.

More later folks.

[zildjian]

NFU act countrywide almost like a franchise, they once had an agent in Norfolk or Lincolnshire I believe, who famously offered a single policy which is the one that appears on google, but he didn't repeat it.

I'd be interested to see another option for insurance as its better to be competitive

I would add the blank expression you can hear down the phone is something almost all of us have experienced at one time or another

[Madmountainman]

Well, there's an afternoon come and gone, but a result at the end.
Campton's are looking good with their quote and, contrary to earlier reports of restricted use abroad and poor mileage allowance, their website offers adjustable options:-
Annual mileage has various options including unlimited. My earlier quote was based on 10K miles a year.
There are two options on Foreign Use;
1. 12 months cover with restricted mileage
2. 3 months unlimited mileage cover, upgradeable (at an increased premium) to 6 months.

However, my current insurers, LV have given me a great price to change just the car insurance to the pickup and, if I cancelled, would charge me £40. Foreign travel and mileage isn't a problem and, most importantly, the pickup's insurance cover will not be voided by having the camper on the back.
Due to that, i've priced up insuring the camper separately with CC (called Crusader direct rather than though CC themselves) and C&CC.
CC Non Member £177 - Member £153
C&CC Member 190

So, it's down to who's the better club to join, CC or C&CC. I'd appreciate your thoughts and experience on this one folks?
The C&CC runs me at a similar cost to Campton, but CC runs cheaper. My personal, but limited experience would point me in the direction of the C&CC, due to my preconceived image and experience of using the CC in the not too distant past.

Once my current car insurance cover runs out in September, and my renewal comes through, i'll take another look at Campton's as it's looking like a two horse race for my requirements.

[zildjian]

Is this; camper insured whether in use or not, at home or not, occupied or not I ask because its not unknown for policies to conflict when least prepared for it; RTA and both car/Camper damaged both needed recovering from far flung place but not together at same time,
then what?

[Madmountainman]

Camper's insured on the truck, off the truck in a campsite and on the driveway at home. Given my planned usage up to September, i'm best off sticking with LV and then looking at it all again later this year. I've also yet to ring my local NFU office to get a Home & Lifestyle quote, which may be of interest dependant on what they quote me. The last time they quoted me, I left for Legal & General, as they came in at half the cost for the same cover.

[cthodgson]

We're a member of the CC and are insured with Crusader - not had to make a claim so can't offer an opinion of them. But by far the cheapest option for us was to insure seperately. I use Aviva which was about £350 for this year's renewal for business use and up to 15k miles and 180 days European cover broken into 90 day trips. You can extend the length of trip but it is pricey.

Benefits of CC - loads of varied discounts on stuff including M6 toll, and leisureshopdirect. Their Red Pennant breakdown cover is meant to be excellent but I don't think covers demountables so buyer beware - I've just discovered http://www.driverguardian.co.uk/ who happily cover demountables under there campervan breakdown cover (I spoke to them yesterday) and are crazy cheap - not always a good thing!

[aejcooper]

Hi

Be very careful when insuring seperately as we had the truck with DirectLine and then purchased the demountable, which we then got a quote for the demountable only from the camping and caravan club. luckily as I work for a large insurance company I understand insurance well and went back to Direct Line to make sure that they where happy for us to carry the demountable on the truck, there underwriters came back and stated that they where not !!!

Accordingly had to cancel the insurance with DirectLine and took combined insurance with Camptons.

So be careful !!!

[zildjian]

Good advice Ashley and (insurance) something usually well down the list after purchase, I have this morning been onto Camptons in response to another issue
they're already popular and a sponsor here but speaking with someone that actually knows what they are talking about really is worth it

[mjb666]

Just asking but was the other issue to do with your De-Mountable?

[zildjian]

well more accurately the hilux and not the camper at all, I'd not sent in a revised V5 after having weight uprated by DVLA and forgotten about it and they like to have everything documented
all in order now