Commercial Insurance vs Private

[Genghis]

Woot!

I bought my bus last Friday (2001 Thomas Freightliner FS65) and I'm going to pick it up this coming Friday. My personal insurance company would not insure it until it has been "Converted". So today I went driving around to various local insurance offices on a quest to get insured before my trip to pickup the bus (13 hour drive).

Success!

Walked into Nationwide on my third try and they were able to give me a "Commercial" insurance liability only policy for a year for around $500 underwritten by Progressive. The price seems good.

Here's the question:

What are the pro's and con's of keeping this commercial policy or trying to get a personal RV insurance once I've converted the bus?

I Love this Forum!

Genghis Sends!

z

[bman91]

I am looking for similar information in another discussion... Was told it kinda depends on your home state.. we are in Michigan and I drove mine home last Saturday!! Congrats...I will be watching to see what you come up with!

[Robin97396]

Many of us stay on our commercial policy for private use. Generally speaking changing to MH registration depends on your level of completion on your conversion. Regardless of your intentions to make your vehicle into a motorhome it's still just a truck, without bus seats, so it gets insured like a truck. In a year or two when your vehicle actually qualifies as a motorhome you have the plates changed to MH and adjust insurance at that time.

I've done it both ways. One has higher registration fees and the other way had higher insurance rates. Overall they were within $10 of each other.

Speaking of an advantage, if you plan to cross any borders you would do well to have no quirks in your registration. In other words if you're living in the vehicle it should be logically registered as a MH for crossing northern or southern borders.

[bman91]

I talked to an agent today and I think we are gonna lean towards keeping it titled a bus private, and commercial style insurance to stay out of all the red tape per say and higher insurance premiums... At least for now... We're in Michigan

[brokedown]

Lots of insurance threads here where people insured as a MH and got their policy cancelled. It's hard to get a policy in Florida unless you just don't ever bring up that you're converting it when purchasing your commercial policy.

[bman91]

What do you tell the company when they ask what your doing with the bus tho lol...

[brokedown]

They didn't ask me. I could have honestly said I was using it to move furniture and appliances though!

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[Robin97396]

I told them I was making a fishing cabin. They liked that.

[Twigg]

I told State Farm what I was doing with the bus. They said their underwriters were perfectly happy with a bus conversion titled as a MH.

I think this varies by state and by broker.

[bman91]

There is a post on here talking about a state farm agent here in Michigan they had good luck with.. I'm.calling our local agent tomorrow and looking into it.. we also have commercial vehicles in a small business not certain we could add it there lol