Caravan Insurance; Why Is It An Important Consideration?
Chester Cooke was excited by the prospect of buying a caravan on the banks of the River Avon, not far from Stratford, on a professionally run, well maintained and gorgeous site with lots of amenities. Being a diligent kind of chap, he looked into all of the potential issues, after all you can’t be too careful with the thick end of twenty grand plus annual service charges, which didn’t include insurance for some reason.
Chester then called his broker and explained to him that he was looking for some caravan insurance. His broker then told him that he would be more than happy to find him a quote, and so Chester gave him the details of the caravan such as the size, type and value, as well was where it would be situated.
It was only a few minutes before the broker called him back and said that he unfortunately could not find him any caravan insurance. The reason was that although the caravan site itself was fine, it was the particular spot that Chester wanted that was the problem. It was next to the river Avon, right at the water’s edge, and last year it had flooded which caused lots of insurance claims, meaning that now, insurers are unwilling to offer any insurance to caravans places right on the water’s edge. If he was going to buy the caravan, it was going to be entirely at his own risk.
This was deal breaking news. It was highly likely that the Avon would flood again at sometime in the future and Chester couldn’t afford to take on a caravan without insurance. He asked his broker about these other “normal criteria” of caravan sites that he should look for if he was going ahead with his plan to buy a caravan.
Ideally the site should be a registered CaSSOA site. There are insurance discounts for these because they have minimum standards of security. If the caravan is to be sited more informally, on a farm for instance, the caravans on the farm should be in their own compound with a defined perimeter. Some insurers insist that there are a minimum number of caravans on the site, safety in numbers as it were. Finally Chester should look for a site with good security, a mature hawthorn hedge or palisade fencing marking the boundaries.
Before this, Chester hadn’t really given much though to caravan insurance. He didn’t think it was going to be such a big part his decision to buy a caravan. All he knew was that he was grateful to have a good broker who knew how to take care of it all because after all, all he really wanted to do was enjoy his caravan. The insurance was just to take the worry out of owning it.