Trailer fire

[Linda1627]

Im in Michigan...Our travel trailer burned and was totalled in August (2009)...We had Full coverage on it..OK the Insurance company paid $15,000 and said we owe $4000 still cause the insurance didnt cover it all...Does this sound right? We tought since we had Full Coverage that should of taken care of it.....TY

 

[Banned_Princess]

Im in Michigan...Our travel trailer burned and was totalled in August (2009)...We had Full coverage on it..OK the Insurance company paid $15,000 and said we owe $4000 still cause the insurance didnt cover it all...Does this sound right? We tought since we had Full Coverage that should of taken care of it.....TY

So you had vehicle coverage on it? Why post this in homeowners if it is an auto insurance claim?

 

[FlyingRon]

Full coverage means they will pay you it's full current value. The fact that you owed more to the bank than that isn't part of the "full"-ness. You needed gap coverage for that.

 

[moburkes]

Sounds like OP is confusing 2 different things. By full coverage OP likely means replacement cost (vs. actual cash value). This simply means there is no depreciation based on the age of the home. However, if you only insured the home for $15,000 instead of $19,000, that's your problem, not the insurance companies'.

Time and time again I see mobile home owners who won't pay the extra money to insure their home for the FULL replacement cost. The insurance company will allow it, but the homeowner feels the mobile home isn't worth that much, so will only insure it for what THEY say its worth.

In the #s I described above, I didn't subtract for any deductibles.

 

[Linda1627]

Trailer

Sorry for posting here..Wasnt for sure where to put this.....When we bought the trailer they said we had to have full coverage..No problem..We figured full coverage would cover anything that could happen...The insurance company didnt tell us nothing about we needed this or that or we would of gotten it...I just feel we got screwed by our insurance company and was wondering if this sounded right to others on here...TY

 

[moburkes]

Sorry for posting here..Wasnt for sure where to put this.....When we bought the trailer they said we had to have full coverage..No problem..We figured full coverage would cover anything that could happen...The insurance company didnt tell us nothing about we needed this or that or we would of gotten it...I just feel we got screwed by our insurance company and was wondering if this sounded right to others on here...TY

My bad. I thought this was a mobile home. If you owed more than the actual cash value of the trailer you're always going to be responsible for that, unless there is GAP insurance available on a trailer. I have no idea if it is. Full coverage simply means coverage for collision and comprehensive. It doesn't tell you the amount of the coverage, since the value of the trailer is determined at the moment before the accident occurs. So, again, if you owed more than it was worth, you're responsible for the difference.

You also need to be a better consumer. Read your policy. Your insurance agent can only do so much.

 

[FlyingRon]

Sounds like OP is confusing 2 different things. By full coverage OP likely means replacement cost (vs. actual cash value).

Even on real estate, replacement cost isn't going to pay the difference between the cost to rebuild and the mortgage amount. Even in a good real estate economy you often have more mortgage than the replacement cost as the land seldom requires replacement in a covered event.

 

[JustAPal00]

Even on real estate, replacement cost isn't going to pay the difference between the cost to rebuild and the mortgage amount. Even in a good real estate economy you often have more mortgage than the replacement cost as the land seldom requires replacement in a covered event.

But in real estate, replacement cost means the amount to replace the home, or build another one just like the old one. You would end up with another home and still have the same mortgage. With a trailer you have to pay off the original loan and then take out another loan to buy a new trailer.

 

[Zigner]

But in real estate, replacement cost means the amount to replace the home, or build another one just like the old one. You would end up with another home and still have the same mortgage. With a trailer you have to pay off the original loan and then take out another loan to buy a new trailer.

And that is because a travel trailer is personal property, not real estate.

 

[moburkes]

Even on real estate, replacement cost isn't going to pay the difference between the cost to rebuild and the mortgage amount. Even in a good real estate economy you often have more mortgage than the replacement cost as the land seldom requires replacement in a covered event.

In my 12 years of insurance experience I've seen it more often than not, where the replacement cost is much higher than the mortgage. Especially when the home is older. However, I've spent most of my insurance career in Cleveland, OH, and that may be why I've seen/experienced this. It could be different in other parts of the country. For example, I currently deal with NY, but I still see more often where we have to increase the replacement cost of the policy vs where we're telling the insured they're overinsured, and that maybe the overinsurance is because they were trying to cover their mortgage. Like 4:1.

And since insurance doesn't cover the land, that's never a consideration for me (for what I do).

OH, but I was talking specifically about the replacement cost of a mobile home, not a site built home. People ALWAYS underinsure their mobile home. When I realized that this was about a trailer, I corrected what I wrote.

 

[JustAPal00]

In my 12 years of insurance experience I've seen it more often than not, where the replacement cost is much higher than the mortgage. Especially when the home is older. However, I've spent most of my insurance career in Cleveland, OH, and that may be why I've seen/experienced this. It could be different in other parts of the country. For example, I currently deal with NY, but I still see more often where we have to increase the replacement cost of the policy vs where we're telling the insured they're overinsured, and that maybe the overinsurance is because they were trying to cover their mortgage. Like 4:1.

And since insurance doesn't cover the land, that's never a consideration for me (for what I do).

OH, but I was talking specifically about the replacement cost of a mobile home, not a site built home. People ALWAYS underinsure their mobile home. When I realized that this was about a trailer, I corrected what I wrote.

In places like DC, replacement cost is often much less then the mortgage. A row house in Georgetown starts at a million. Even there you can build a lot of home for a million. I constantly had to explain why the insurancew company would only insure their home for half their mortgage.

 

[JustAPal00]

And that is because a travel trailer is personal property, not real estate.

Correct! Do you understand OP?

 

[moburkes]

In places like DC, replacement cost is often much less then the mortgage. A row house in Georgetown starts at a million. Even there you can build a lot of home for a million. I constantly had to explain why the insurancew company would only insure their home for half their mortgage.

That's fair. Thanks.