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Insurance
Good news! We have a contract on our house. If all goes as planned, we will have a coach in time for the Branson Rally!
We would be interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts on insurance providers.
Who do you use?
Do you have any special coverage?
If you have had a claim, how would you rate their response?
Thanks!
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39 Replies
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I wonder is there might be some movement in the future to see a Converter/Prevost partnership to self fund new coach insurance policies so new sales can continue. Think about it, someone willing to pay 2-2.5 million for a new coach is not a deadbeat, irresponsible, bad driving record buyer. No one buying a new Prevost conversion will be looking to wreck their Coach. I think a Converter/Prevost collaberation to insure these new Coaches for 5 years will ensure a comfortable feeling among new buyers allowing for the continued building of new Coaches. With the drawback of insurance companies that don’t understand the “business” of high end Coaches Converters and Bus Mfgs. must think out of the box. Michael
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Jon,
While what you say should be considered, however some can depreciate the coach or have other justifications. My point on insurance is this:
Current coach is x per 100k of insurance
New coach quote is 4x per 100k
This does not balance or make mathematical sense to me, other than only 1 or 2 are even willing to quote a rate.
Several now writing policies will not make any change to the policy or write a new one. So, it is killing new coach sales as the historical ins cost has gone up 4 times if someone is even willing to write it.
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The insurace costs for the older coach market have also increased about 3X in about 3 or 4 years, and worse, I only know of one that will do agreed value.
My point is now that the insurance marketplace has almost zero competition they that remain are raping their customers. I cannot believe claims or losses have increased 3 or 4 times.
The question is what do we do? Some are going with the company that now covers their cars and home thinking they are getting a deal. But the problem is on a partial loss they will be arm wrestling with a company that is going to gasp for air when it figures out the cost to fix a bus conversion isn’t close to what it will cost to fix similar damage on a Winnebago. If there is a total loss then the Prevost owner has zero leverage because the insurance company will have provided an ACV policy, and guess what value they will assign to the coach? If you as an owner don’t like the fact you are being offered a low ball figure for a total loss, get prepared to face a very long expensive legal battle with almost no chance of a win.
What we need is a company that knows conversions, has reasonable pricing, and excludes people who are a risk so costs are low and premiums can be more reasonable.
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I am working on a company that insure airplanes to look at the Prevost market…
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Hello,
Insurance is one of the two of the reasons I purchased a 1998 XL vs a 2006 ish model. Along with not really having to worry about depreciation.
My coach will always keep the value I paid for it, State Farm insures my coach and in case of a total loss, I would be covered
Thanks
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Don’t bet on it.
And if you have a partial loss, especially one with hidden damage that isn’t known until the repair process begins get ready to go toe to toe with the adjuster and spend more time arguing about what is covered than it takes to fix the coach in the first place.
Let’s be practical. When you buy insurance it is like betting against the house in Las Vegas. Insurance companies are in the business of making money so you have a choice. Do you take the bet? Every time you pay the premium you are betting something bad will happen (so you can “win”) and the insurance company is betting you will not file a claim.
You can self insure. You can buy a policy whose language gives essentially all the power to the insurance company, or you can pay very high premiums for a policy that has agreed value. No matter what you choose the decision may be a bad one.
We have a member whose coach suffered electrical damage and from what limited information I have it was a nightmare getting the damage covered. Maybe he will chime in.
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Say you have a coach worth 150K and you know there will be continued depreciation so why not take the chance of having to pay for accident repairs yourself. Just carry liability. If you are going to gamble purchasing anything repairs and depreciation will always be there. So why argue with the insurance adjuster just get liability for accidents and pay the repairs yourself out of the money you would have given to the insurance agency. People buying the Coaches are not using food or rent money and are at an age that a total loss will not be the end of their lives. So why get Coach replacement or ACV and watch the dollars evaporate every year? Just get liability. For years we have done that with our automobiles. Just get liability and we have saved a ton of money, cant that work with a Coach?
Michael
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Thise who own their coach free and clear can certainly self insure for the accident coverage. But if the coach has been financed they are out of luck.
The cruelest part is if they have a loan balance that exceeds the market value and the insurance company decides how much to pay in a total loss and it is less than loan balance by far, the owner is on the hook for the difference.
If an owner can get agreed value coverage but understates its value to save money the insurance company can write a check in the event of a loss, either resell the coach or pay for repairs and sell it and walk away with little out of pocket and the owner hasn’t any way to cover the real difference between the agreed value and true market value. It is a complicated issue and it seems to be getting very bad.
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This is an interesting thread. Keep in mind that if you underinsure there can be problems. Let us say you have a coach that is valued at $150,000. You insure it for $75,000 to save $$. If you have a fire and do $50,000 damage the insurance company will only pay $25,000 as you insured it for half. As for those that may be upside down in the value of their coach you may have bad times ahead. There is a 90 % chance that we are going into a full blown Recession. World wide. That $150,000 will drop at least 25% in value. Plus the market will be shrinking. Even the fairly new expensive coaches will be hard to sell. Although many are corporate owned many corporations won’t have the bucks to spend on a luxury coach. The only bright light in this scenario would be a prospective buyer with cash in hand!
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Hello,
Here is my situation as when I purchase my coach I wanted to make sure my insurance WILL cover me.
I have a 1998 Featherlight XL purchased in August 2018..I paid $104,000. I wanted a coach that was near the end of deprecian cycle. It may go down a bit more, but it seems even early 1990 coaches are at the bottom 85K to 95K
As this is my business coach, I totally zeroed out the coach. Tires, coach and house, batteries, front end upper and lowers, all brake valves, air bags, brake chambers, brakes, equlizer, rebuilt generator, all hoses in the chasis coolent system and on and on.. I mean everything that is a critical system has been completed. I now have 175K in th coach. My philosophy is I have to be at my shows or I will lose tons of money. I will do everything preventative to edge my bet on that.
State Farm insures my home, cars, umbrellas. I decided to go with them as they are a AAA company and I have 30 years of really great experience with them.
I met with my Agency owner with over 50 Prevosts documents in hand. Many from Prevoststuff.com. Made sure the underwriters understood that my coach is valued at $175,000 to $200,000. I made sure if I ever have a total loss there will be no argument. I have in writing from State Farm this is the agreed upon value and my premium is base on that number.
For anyone that is under insuring you coaches and not carrying at least 5 mlllion in liability insurance then you may want to reconsider. These coaches can do real damage if you rear in a car.
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Hello nameless post. I too talked with state farm whom I have all the stuff you mentioned with them. However, they first indicated in a complete total loss they would research Kelly BB, then Edwards for coach value ( not agreed value).When I quite laughing I explained he first would not find Prevost there, second with all due respect you don`t know what you`re talkin about.
Conclusion be very careful so you don`t get surprised if you ever need a claim.
I believe since most people don`t use their Bus year around and maybe house it at your home, part time coverage may be an answer. You`ll still be fully insured as long as you`re not driving and activate full coverage when traveling.
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x2 what Zmax73 said.
We have everything except the Prevost covered by State Farm too. I’ve known our agent since grade school. She can’t do an agreed value policy.
We’ve been with The Miller Agency/National General for the Prevost since we bought it 6+ yrs ago. Our annual premium has increased 130% in those 6+ yrs. I’m 62 yrs old. No wrecks, no tickets, no claims, 800+ credit rating. Our daily driver premiums haven’t gone up half that much.
It sucks, but my personal health insurance has increased by a lot more than 130% in the same period of time. Again no claims, etc.
And they say we live in deflationary times? Not in my world.
Zmax73, where can we find this part time insurance we can turn on and off? -
For those that are OK with an ACV Policy, I too added the bus to my Allstate with home, cars and excess liability. They used the internet to find a value for the policy which was better than what I was looking for and the premium went from 41000 agreed value to 23000.
Not for everyone, but worked for me.
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When the health and economic troubles are over look for huge increase in insurance premiums. Insurance company make most of their $$ by investing. They will be taking huge investment losses and expecting us to make up the shortfall.
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I was fine with ACV policy as I didn’t want to pay the agreed value premium. Considered liability only (no lien) however living in OK when storm season arrives – it is comforting to know I at least have some coverage that is arguable on value, same goes for fire or theft. So my main concerns other than liability probably fall under comprehensive.
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