Getting the best deal for your camper van insurance is a must, it will help you save money you can put towards some upgrades and/or road trips! Getting cheaper insurance depends on your age, driving experience and postcode. None of these were in our favour when we first bought our van, so we've outlined how to get the cheapest insurance possible despite this. The truth is there are no quick and easy ways to get cheaper van insurance. You have to give over all your details and the underwriters will give you a quote, hiding information and not giving the correct details will end in a world of trouble, not to mention that it is insurance fraud. To get a lower premium you need experience and no claims history and these take time. But one thing you can do is shop around for the best quote, that is what we did and the quote that we went with was around £800 cheaper than the orginal! If you haven’t converted your van yet, many companies offer van in conversion insurance. This is what we opted for as it was the cheapest way to insure whilst we built. Normal van insurance is more expensive than camper van insurance and the camper van in conversion insurance is a bridge between. Our insurer offered us insurance, but only if we converted it to a camper within 30 days! Click here to look at our 30 day camper conversion. There are lots of opinions on how to get budget insurance, many people will recommend you companies and tell you to go for them because “we have been with them for 15 years and are really good!”. That is fine, but insurance policies are based on individual circumstances and yours could be worlds away from the person giving you advice. Obviously this means that you should shop around to compare quotes. This can be a really time consuming process and hard to fit in if you are working 9-6. To find our insurance we used Compare the Market. It seemed odd at first that this would give us the cheapest quote as it seemed too obvious to try a comparison site. But out of the 10 or so companies the company that we found using the comparison site came out as cheapest each time. For our first year building the van we were insured with Staveley Head, as it was the cheapest we could find. When our renewal was due, we found a cheaper policy with Brentacre. As mentioned before this might not be the best option for you as each quote is based on individual circumstances so shop around. We recommend doing the Compare the Market quotation as you can fill in your details once and as you probably already know you will get a number of quotes. BUT, even though this seems like the most obvious/easiest route it actually produces results! Once you have the quotation you can use this figure as a base level see if other companies can beat it. By having a number to benchmark against you will figure out if its a good deal or not. We found this stat on the Adrian Flux website: 79.4% of all customers receiving an online quote in September 2018 could have obtained a cheaper quote over the phone, based on the information they provided.
List of Motor Caravan Insurers (not all offer budget insurance) Here's a list of all the companies that were recommended to us and that we contacted for insurance quotes. These might not be on the comparison sites so we recommend contacting them all individually for a quote: Brentacre – https://www.brentacre.co.uk
Stavely Head - https://www.staveleyhead.co.uk JustKampers – https://www.justkampersinsurance.com Adrian Flux – https://www.adrianflux.co.uk Caravan Guard – https://www.caravanguard.co.uk/
A Plan - www.aplan.co.uk
Advanced Insurance - https://advanceinsurance.co.uk
AIB - www.aib-insurance.co.uk
2gether Insurance - https://2getherinsurance.co.uk
Comfort Insurance - https://www.comfort-insurance.co.uk
Classic line - https://www.classiclineinsurance.co.uk
Things that make Insurance more expensive
1. Age - If you are under 25 you may find getting van insurance more difficult or expensive. We even found some motorhome insurance companies that wouldn't insure anyone under 30!
2. Lack of driving experience - Michael had only just passed his driving test when we got the van. It would have been over double the price to add him to the insurance for the first year. Once he had a year's experience under his belt it was a bit more affordable, but we found that most companies require at least 2 years driving experience to even offer you a policy.
3. Not enough no claims bonus - On our first year of insurance we didn't have any no claims bonus to add to the policy as we had never owned a vehicle before. If you've already had a car for a few years, this will help bring the cost of your van insurance down.
4. Postcode - Where you live / where your van is registered will affect the cost of your premium. Use this postcode checker to find out the average costs for your area. If you are going to be travelling full time in your van it's likely you will need to use a family member's address to register your insurance. It might help to pick someone with a low risk postcode if possible!
5. Where the van will be parked - Insurers always ask where the vehicle is going to be kept overnight when at the home address. If you have a driveway or offroad parking, this often brings the insurance cost down.
Insurance is definitely one of the less fun parts of van life, but unfortunately something you will have to sort each year! We hope that this guide makes the daunting job a bit easier for you.
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