No matter whether you use your caravan for your holidays, your main home or attach it to the back of your car in nice weather you should make sure that you have caravan insurance. It may be something that you have not thought of, especially if it spends most of the time on your front drive, but it is a necessity as we never know what is round the corner.

If you’re a grey insurance man like me, with a particular liking for early 70’s bands like Soft Machine & Caravan, you probably think you’ve seen the last of your summer music festivals and dripping tents in the middle of noisy fields in Somerset but it doesn’t have to be that way, because these days you can take your motorhome or caravan (or somebody else’s motorhome or caravan) along and enjoy the music without spending any nights under canvas. Listen to Caravan in your caravan!

“It feels so unjust. You own a property, you let it to someone on the promise of a fair rent, and they don’t pay up. More often than not, you will have a mortgage to pay, and the lender expects its monthly instalments. It feels like the property owner takes all the risks. Surely my insurance broker will be able to find a way to mitigate the risk of arrears with insurance.”

A man called Chester Cooke was once very excited about an idea he had. He wanted to buy a caravan on the banks of the river Avon on a well-kept, professionally owned and run caravan site with plenty of amenities. However, not being the sort of chap that would buy something like a caravan on impulse, he looked into everything that could possibly go wrong, all the hidden costs and anything that could potentially cost him over and above what he was willing to pay.

There is a rather oddly titled album by the 1970’s rock band Caravan called “For Girls Who Go Plump In The Night” now I know that this is not the kind of thing you would expect an insurance man to be writing about or even to know, even if he does own one (a caravan I mean!) An insurance man in a caravan is quite possibly not that uncommon, but an insurance man in a caravan listening to Caravan? Surely Not?!

You need a certain amount of life insurance to protect your dependents in case of death. Your family will need enough income to cover the same living expenses they had before your passing. A younger man should have more coverage than a man near retirement age. Rule of thumb is twenty-five times the amount of money you earn in one year from age twenty-five and for ten years after that. After thirty-five, you can lower the payoff for each additional year of life.

A substitute for people looking to steer clear of bankruptcy is an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA); it is an agreement with the creditors of a person seeking to keep up with their debts but, because of changes in their financial situation, can no longer make the previously agreed repayments.

I read in Insurance Times recently that the financial Ombudsman had decreed that it would, in certain circumstances, back a policyholder against an insurer excluding claims for leaving keys in or near a car. I can’t help but wonder if the same would apply for a motor home. As an insurance broker, I almost feel that this story is not one to publicise.

Insuring your possessions is vital today as there are so many incidents that could cause them to be damaged or stolen. If you own a caravan you will probably need to have some caravan insurance advice before you select a policy. If this is the case here are a few pieces of advice on obtaining the right type of caravan insurance.