Is Your Truck Camper Really Insured?

Insuring any kind of an RV can be a challenge. If not done right, you can find out at claims time that what you thought was covered--wasn't covered in the mind of the insurance company. And truck campers, of all the RVs are quite possibly the most misunderstood by insurance company agents.

Consider the different types of insurance. Perhaps the most important to your financial future is liability insurance. Most insurance companies do agree on this point: If you're in an accident and your truck camper is mounted on your truck and the accident is your fault, you should be covered. And that coverage should come from your truck's liability coverage--not something that you had to purchase separately for your t.c. From there it gets a wee bit stickier.

What if you're motoring down the road with your t.c. on the back of your pickup, and hey, Woopsie! You slide off the road and into a tree. Will your insurance company fix the damage to your t.c.? Not very likely--unless you're carrying collision coverage--specifically on the camper. What about the tree that falls on your t.c., while it's mounted on the truck? Same story.

When the camper is "off the truck," you can probably see that if the camper isn't separately insured, all bets are off. Of course, you still shouldn't need "liability" coverage--unless someone falls out the door of your t.c. and decides they want to sue. In that case, your homeowner's insurance might stand up and fight for you. While homeowner's insurance might or might not cover your loss should someone steal your camper, they very well might cover loss of contents should some grievous campground thief break in and steal your goodies.

But how do you know? You need to ask your insurer, or potential insurer, questions--lots of questions. Spell out various scenarios, and find out what's covered, and what's not. And be prepared to ask for a more experienced agent or manager to help out--a lot of newer agents probably don't have a clue what a truck camper is, and may envision a motorhome and give you incorrect answers.

When you get done asking questions, and you feel you want to insure with a particular company, have them put it all down in writing. And sign it. That way, should the undesirable happen and the company begin to waffle, you'll have your coverage nailed down in print.

photo: Is your RV in good hands?

Newbie Corner: What's an RV Wet Bath?

This isn't a question that comes up too often in the "other" RV sections, but for those looking at buying a truck camper, the question of, "What's a wet bath," comes up pretty often. "After all, I figure when I'm gonna take a shower I'll get wet, right?"

Our first "big" truck camper--our first tc with a bathroom, had a wet bath. A wet bath is a bathroom where the shower, the toilet, and (if there is one) the sink, all share the same space. In our old Okanogan (long time an orphan) camper the wet bath had a one piece "floor pan." The toilet perched up atop the black water holding tank, and the shower shared the same fiberglass floor, with the shower water running into its own built in gray water tank.

A wet bath is typically an innovation to save space. Mind you, 'sitting on the pot' with your feet propped up on the edge of the shower stall could lead to some interesting entanglements in the middle of the night. Our present Fleetwood camper is a "dry bath," rig, separate toilet, walk-in shower stall, and sink. I'm not so sure if the matter is all that much of an improvement--to really be comfortable with those long, pondering sessions on the throne, the best way is to pop the door open out into the dinette area, giving you a wee bit of leg room. Not real skookum when the company comes for a visit!

To digress just a moment: Our Okanogan with the wet bath was a battle-scarred veteran when we first got it. Little did we realize just how scarred it was, until the middle of one night on the desert when we were blasted from our sleep by a loud "CRACK!" Driven from bed by the fairer sex, your host opened the bathroom door to find the wet bath "pan" dropped below the normal floor level by a few inches.

Reporting my findings back to the wife, she queried, "What do we do now?" What to do? "Get up and figure out how to fix it in the morning," was my bold reply. And with that I rolled over, shut off the reading light, and went back to sleep. She, like all good tc women, lay awake all night stewing about it.

photo courtesy east end campers