Caravan Insurance – Do I Need It?

Marcy Marc 26th November 2024

Insurance has always been one of those items which nobody enjoys paying, and for some reason it seems doubly painful when it comes to caravan insurance.

It seems to go like this:

First you’ve scraped enough money together to buy your pride and joy – that can be anything from £500 to £25000 depending on the age and condition of your baby.
You then realize you have to buy a host of other items (water butt, waste water tank, electrical hook up cable etc) which are not exactly cheap.
Then you’re recommended to buy a wheel clamp or similar for security
How about CRIS registering your windows?
Mmm, where are we going to store our caravan? Hello £30-£50 a month storage costs!

So then the question of caravan insurance comes to the fore. Well is it worth paying for? We would argue yes because caravan thefts are unfortunately increasingly common and unfortunately you are not going to be covered for theft under your household or car insurance. From 2015, the number of thefts have gone up from around 2000 a year to ~4000 caravans stolen in 2020.

Do I need separate insurance for a caravan?

Caravan insurance is not a legal obligation like it is for a motorized vehicle, even though towing a caravan can add to the risk of an accident, for example when towing at motorway speeds or through heavy winds. The risk of caravan ‘snaking’ and eventual overturning becomes much higher than with an unladen car.

In some rare cases, your towcar insurance may cover your trailer (e.g. caravan or trailer tent) for accidental damage (especially third party) – however, this is certainly not a given and you are likely to have to pay a premium to your car/van insurance for this additional protection – make sure you check with your insurer to see if you’re covered, and don’t assume anything unless it’s in writing. Your car itself should also be covered when towing, but again you do need to check this.

In terms of theft of your caravan you may not be covered under any scenarios, whether you are storing at home, at a separate storage site or on holiday at a campsite. If you are worried about this, then paying for insurance is certainly worthwhile for peace of mind in our opinion, especially if your van is worth thousands of pounds.

How much does Caravan Insurance Cost?

This is one of those ‘how long is a piece of string questions’, and the price will be dependent on a number of factors such as:

the value of your caravan
the location of where your caravan will primarily be stored
the security in place to both stop your caravan being moved as well as the security in place around it to help catch/prevent someone stealing it in the first place!

In terms of the final point above, some insurers will only cover your caravan if you use a hitch lock and a wheel clamp when it is left unattended. Alternatively you may be allowed to simply remove the wheels yourself and store them elsewhere without having the clamps in place.

Wit all the above considerations in place, you are likely to be asked to pay anything from £100-£400 per year for your caravan insurance and you need to decide whether that is worthwhile to you.

Our rule of thumb is that if the insurance costs more than 5% of the vehicle cost per year then it is not worth paying for. For example if your van cost £10000 and the premium required was £600 a year (6%) then it would seem pretty extortionate to us, but obviously that would be your own decision to take – certainly ring around for multiple quotes in those circumstances.

Get a Caravan Insurance Quote

These days it is extremely easy to get a caravan insurance quote online and in a matter of minutes. We recommend the following insurance companies as a starting point for getting competitive caravan insurance.

Confused.com caravan insurance
- Excellent well-known web-based company who scour the internet for the best insurance deals and present the results in an easy to understand way.
- They will allow you to list your security devices on your caravan and take these into consideration.
Ripe Caravan insurance
- 5-star trustpilot insurance service for caravans
- over 270000 caravan policy holders

Overall, it shouldn’t take too long to find a competitive quote to cover your caravan for both theft and damage. We have had friends who recently had a dent put in their Eriba by a reckless driver and their insurance company paid up without hesitation, although there were a few hoops to go through (multiple forms etc and even witness statements required).