Insurance

[eagle19952]

What coach do you have and who is your agent ?
are they a local or a national agent ( do they have an office in your home town) ?
I'm starting to think a "hometown" connection might be best ...

I'm paying National General $710 a year for full timers/full coverage. Liability limits are @ 250/500K
1K deductable. For just liability I was quoted $139 annual with the same limits. Contents coverage is based on the coaches value. In our case contents are @ 9K.
Claims, on the other hand, are a joke. Finally after near 3 months they have deemed our bus a
"Total Loss" from a hail storm on July 7th. If the valuation process is handled like our trailer and car it will be a fight. Their adjuster undervalued the damage, to our brand new car, by over 30%. They tried to compare our trailer, (for value purposes), to trailers that literaly cost 1/2 as much.
What I've learned... Great rates are great, BUT is it worth it ? Next insurer I use will be based on service and satisfaction rather than price.
Don & Sheila

[mung]

Hometown used to be good too, but even that isn't always great.  My ex-wife let my boat insurance with AllState laps (through a local agent) and when I tried to get it reinstated, they said, nope, we don't insure boats over 26'.  I said, well what about the policy I had with you a few months ago.  Oh, you were grandfathered in, but since it lapsed, we can't give you that policy back. 

[skihor]

What coach do you have and who is your agent ?
are they a local or a national agent ( do they have an office in your home town) ?
I'm starting to think a "hometown" connection might be best ...

We have a '67 MCI MC 5A. Pro conversion from Leisure Time RV in Bakersfield, Ca. Conversion done in '83. National General is based in Ohio and have no offices, adjusters, appraisers, etc... in Colorado.
I was asked to provide pictures of the damage. I told them where to go. They had to "hire" independent appraisers/adjusters. I had to do some of the "homework" just to get a fair deal. I pay all of my insurances annualy and next May I will be shopping based on service rather than price.
Don & Sheila

[Newbob]

IN the interest of sharing I will attempt to tell my insurance experience thus far:

Keep in mind that I will be using my bus for business commercial use before I convert it to a camper in a couple years so initially I just wanted to get insurance to move the 30 foot (only 27 foot body) BlueBird FE transit (2002) from it's old home top my shop about 2 hours away. Leaving out all the confusing and gory details about attempting to register and tagging the rig, I wanted to make sure I had at least liability in place before I moved it. So I called my local friendly State Farm agent and inquired. She said " we don't do cammercial - call this guy" - so I did. This guy asked lots of questions and I won't repeat them all but lets just say the sticking point was that it was a transit bus and for some reason, no one was interested in insuring it with ONE exception simply due to the fact that the VIN came up an "Does Not Qualify" So in dealing with the "ONE exception" company, they insisted that any driver have had a CDL for at least 2 years. I insisted (having a CDL myself) that the intention of the bus was to use it commercially but that it was NOT being used to transport people (for hire while moving) - except for the driver and a passenger or two (not for hire). Also, the bus is under 26000 pounds and does not have air brakes so it does NOT need a CDL. I went round and round with this clown in almost 100 email communications! I told him that it was my opinion that if he did not call the underwriter in person and explain the situation - they would not change their position. But Nooooo, He just did it the way he always has and could not for the life of him (he SAYS he did call personally) get them to drop the restriction. (I will hire other people to drive at some point and do not want to limit my options). I even called the state BMV and asked them to confirm the use and requirements for the vehicle.

So, I actually ended up going through this TWICE! - The first agent insured me that she had it figured out and , on the day I was supposed to go and drive the bus back, we met in the AM to sign the papers and she said, "Oh, I just need to run the VIN" - and I froze, dumbfounded, after all the phone calls I had been through, I could not believe she had not even run the VIN!! I had taken every precaution to stress to her how she needed to call in person to be sure they got the whole story. Sure enough, the system would not take the VIN and when she called to ask why, they said it was "not qualified". So that blew the whole plan for the day, my ride, etc.

So, I'm at a party at a friends house one night expressing my woes to another friend who I thought did only health insurance. He says, "tell me what the issue is - I do commercial vehicle insurance". So, This friend gets the same result at first and presses further and ends up straightening the whole thing out with the SAME underwriter that BOTH the previous insurance agents had said they dealt with!! Turns out there are like 3 or 4 different policies to cover the vehicle, contents, liability and business. I sign next week.

[eagle19952]

now let's see what happens if you ever file a claim...that's the test.

[Newbob]

Well for me, That was part of the struggle, - Getting the details into the policy that spelled out what was covered specifically for my vehicle.

[eagle19952]

that's the test...of any policy 

Well for me, That was part of the struggle, - Getting the details into the policy that spelled out what was covered specifically for my vehicle.

[digesterman]

Here's some research....it's on the internet, but from people I am confident in quoting:


We have had Progressive Insurance through Miller Insurance for several years. They are good people and very helpful. I love their phone greeting when you call their office! Progressive has very competitive rates and their claims process is the best that I have ever experienced. I think you will be very happy with them.

Cheryl Howarth from Miller Insurance in Lake Oswego, Oregon and another agent from South Dakota, both of whom have a lot of RV owners as customers, took it upon themselves to contact National Interstate on our behalf. The response from the company was immediate, and within an hour or so the same claims adjuster who had been giving us grief was on the telephone bending over backwards to accommodate our every need..."I appreciate your help very much. For anyone interested, Gina's office phone number is 605-271-8100 and her company website is [url=http://www.epic-ins.com/]http://www.epic-ins.com/] [url]http://www.epic-ins.com/]http://www.epic-ins.com/]http://www.epic-ins.com/] [url]http://www.epic-ins.com/[/url]. She is another agent whom I highly recommend."
Epic Insurance, Sioux Falls SD


As soon as life gets back to normal after the holidays, we will be talking to Cheryl at Miller Insurance about placing all of our business with her. From all of the good feedback I have gotten from customers of Progressive, I think that's who we'll end up with, if Cheryl represents them. She has earned our business, and I'd much rather she makes a commission on our insurance policies. PoliSeek has seen the last penny they'll ever get from me. If you are looking for RV insurance, or are thinking about moving your business, I'd readily recommend Cheryl. I'd recommend the agent in South Dakota as well, but I never did get her full name or the name of the agency she works for.

So these folks are saying Progressive is good, National is not,
poliseek is not a good agent (in 2009) and the girls mentioned will get your claim.

I called Miller Insurance in Lake Oswego Oregon yesterday (they are just a few minutes from where we live), they gave me a quote within 5-10 minutes with National Interstate that was 1/3 of what we are paying with Progressive now, same limits.

It appears that the original owner, John Miller, was a big RV'er (which I think Clifford mentioned) and they were very familiar with Prevosts, which I was insuring. They told me to take another look at my Progressive policy "stated value", I found out that Progressive had left out what they told me on the phone and just put in replacement value. With NI I have a stated value WRITTEN (typed) on/into the policy which they agree to pay in the event of a total loss.

So my take of Millers is that they prefer National Interstate to others as far as coaches are concerned.

[eagle19952]

my main point..was that the agent, was more better to have the right one vs. the underwriter.
i think that the agent writes what gets the best return for them..i know i would...
but ... what's more important is the ink...if it ain't in ink it ain't paying.
and if the agent won't back the gorilla in the corner..well you'd have less luck alone.

[digesterman]

Just checking to make sure I am getting the correct feedback from this thread, had never heard of National Interstate before and want to make sure it is a good one. 😊

[shelled]

I had an interesting conversation with one of the insurance agents in my local AAA office when I dropped by to renew my membership.  I asked him if AAA insured bus conversions specifically.  I was a bit surprised that he knew exactly what I was talking about.  He said that AAA's direct insurance does NOT insure bus conversions BUT they work with and recommend an agent who does.  The AAA referral was to --

Joanna Hassell, phone (469) 221-7589 or (888) 416-2402

Does anybody here know anything about Joanna ?

edward

[sweeney153]

I am an Insurance Broker and I insure my 4106 with Safeco a division of Liberty Mutual. You can't compare insurance from one state to another. I will help any one from this board in any way I can. I am not looking to write policies all over the country. you are better off local.  If you need help translating insurance to English let me know.

[Oonrahnjay]

      About 5 years ago, Allstate wrote me a letter saying that they would no longer cover any RV's in North Carolina and I had to go find other (liability only) coverage -- oh, they'd be happy to keep taking my money for my car and house.  I called them and asked if this was right and they said it was.  I told them to go throw water up a rope and cancelled all their policies.  I called Progressive and they quoted me really good rates on the car insurance but kept me on the phone for 45 minutes on my bus conversion asking a lot of d**n fool questions.  Final decision -- they wouldn't cover it.  I took all my business elsewhere.