New guy with a question

[85 359 Pete]

I just purchased a 85 Peterbuilt that has been stretched and had a 24' living space added. I had a friend tell me about all of the benefits of a class 8 over buying a heavier duty pickup and this thing had the appeal of the classic Pete so I was hooked. The truck was put together by a guy that built drag cars and the fab work seems to be stellar. The bad part is he never got around to finishing the interior. I decided to take on the project of completely redoing the inside of the truck to suit my tastes.

I picked up the truck last week and it seems that I may have hit my first hurtle with it. The seller mentioned how cheap his insurance was and it was pretty much in line with my friends agreed value policy on his FL70 conversion so I didn't question it (my stupidity) turns out he only had liability coverage on it. Now we are running into dead end after dead end trying to find someone that will do loss coverage on it since it was not professionally built. Any recommendations on an insurance company that will take on this thing or am I stuck risking it with only liability? It seems that most companies have no idea how to classify it so they just say they can't cover it or that it's a commercial vehicle and can't go on a personal policy. We have found one company that said they "may" cover it only after seeing photos and it would be much more than we had planned to spend yearly on insurance especially on the small value that we are trying to insure it for.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[jasong-TC]

Since its an rv, try Foremost.
They are used to writing policies for full timers and are very flexible.

 

[hot rod]

There were several other older threads on this forum discussing insurance, you may be able to look through those.

Welcome!

 

[85 359 Pete]

Thanks! I'll keep digging, We called Foremost today and it was a no go. They'd be happy to help if we had a bus of some type that had been converted but since it used to be a semi they want nothing to do with it.

 

[krapf710]

the key is to tell them its an RV and that is all, do not tell them its is a converted truck etc, and make sure to always say rv, rv, rv, etc.

 

[85 359 Pete]

Thanks for the input guys.

I thought I'd post an update to my story, it's been a while since I've been on here.

I had absolutely no luck with any of the major carriers in NC. They all came back with one of two answers. "We can't cover it because the Title came back as a Peterbilt semi truck" it's titled as a House Car which is how NC classifies RV's for some reason. or "We can't cover it because it wasn't professionally converted"

After about four weeks of "No's" my wife and started questioning whether we really should have bought this thing! On kind of a last ditch effort we contacted Grundy Collector car insurance because we have a few show cars and had thought about switching them over to get better coverage in the past. Fortunately for us they will cover any type of RV with agreed value as long as you carry a substantial amount of coverage on other vehicles. We now have agreed values on four vehicles including the ole Pete and added better coverage to a couple of our daily drivers. Our yearly rate only went up a hundred bucks over what we were paying Nationwide. It all worked out for us and I thought I'd throw Grundy's name out for anyone looking...

We have now started the full renovation of the living area and I must say we are enjoying every minute of it!

 

[Bob86ZZ4]

Great news! I love a happy ending. I'm sure glad you didn't give up. You're going to love that thing when it's all done.

 

[MnTom-FRF]

Wow, only $100 increase? That's great!