Mobile home and manufactured home insurance

Homeowners insurance is protection for your home and your belongings in the event of disaster or malicious activity. Mobile home insurance, also called manufactured home insurance, is similar to homeowners insurance but is written specifically for people who own a mobile or factory-manufactured home or trailer.

Mobile home insurance protects your personal property as well as the structure of your mobile home. Your policy may also cover you in the event that your home becomes uninhabitable due to a covered loss and you’re required to spend money to live somewhere else. Mobile home insurance also reimburses you if someone gets injured in your home and you’re liable for the injury or their related medical bills.

What is mobile home insurance?

Mobile home insurance is financial protection for your mobile or manufactured home. Your mobile home insurance typically only covers your home while it is not in motion. Your mobile home or manufactured home insurance is composed of different types of coverages that offer different types of protection. Each one will have a coverage limit, meaning that if you file a claim, the insurance company only has to pay up to the limit. If the damage exceeds your coverage limits, you’ll have to pay the remainder out of pocket yourself. Coverage limits vary from company to company as well as coverage to coverage, and you may be able to increase them.

The following coverage types are included in a mobile and manufactured home insurance policy:

Additional mobile home insurance coverage

Mobile home insurance has additional coverages that offer small amounts of reimbursement for expenses you might not otherwise associate with your daily living.

Some of those additional coverages include:

• Credit cards, identity theft, forgery. Pays for reimbursement for any costs incurred by the fraudulent use of your credit card, forged checks cashed in your name, and expenses related to identity theft.

• Trees, shrubs, lawns. Protection for your landscaping.

• Debris removal. If debris damages your home due to a covered peril, you may be able to get the cost to repair the damage reimbursed.

• Food spoilage. If a loss of power causes your food to spoil, you may be able to get the cost of the food reimbursed.

• Emergency protection and repair. May include protection for your mobile home when it is damaged in a collision with being transported or otherwise in motion.

What perils does mobile home insurance cover?

Your mobile home insurance covers different threats and risks in the event they damage your property. These risks, which are called either named perils or covered perils in your policy, include malicious damage like vandalism or theft and elemental damage like fire or wind.

Typical covered perils include:

• Fire and lightning

• Smoke

• Windstorms and hail

• Theft

• Vandalism

• Water damage from bursting pipes

• Explosions

• Riots and commotions

Damage from natural disasters like floods or earthquakes are excluded from mobile home insurance policies. You may be able to add an endorsement to your policy for these hazards or purchase standalone earthquake or flood insurance policies.

Different types of mobile home insurance

One of the major ways that mobile home insurance differs from homeowners insurance is that you’re not necessarily presumed to be living there full time. You can purchase coverage that reflects the way you use your mobile or manufactured home; policies are typically one of three residence categories.

• Primary residence:If you or someone in your family lives in your home for more than a minimum amount of time specified by the policy, you need primary residence coverage.

• Secondary or seasonal residence: If you only use your home occasionally, such as for vacations or recreation, your mobile home insurance policy will be for secondary or seasonal coverage.

• Rental residence: If you rent your manufactured home to somebody else, you’ll get rental residence coverage. Note that most rental residence mobile home insurance policies stipulate that the tenant must not be an immediate family member, and that the tenant will likely not have coverage through your policy and should get their own renters insurance policy to protect their belongings.

What kind of mobile homes are covered by mobile home insurance?

Mobile home insurance is different from homeowners insurance in that the latter is meant to cover homes constructed on site. But mobile and manufactured home insurance covers many types of homes, including but not limited to:

• Trailers, travel trailers, fifth-wheel trailers

• Single-wide manufactured and single-wide mobile homes

• Double-wide manufactured and double-wide mobile homes

• Sectional homes

• Modular homes

• Park model homes and some RVs

The size and age of your manufactured home may affect your insurance premiums.

Older mobile home insurance

It can be difficult to insure older mobile homes as they may no longer pass inspection, and they may have unregulated building standards. That said, if you make certain updates to your vintage mobile home, insurers may be more inclined to insure you as it makes your home less high-risk. If you can’t find mobile home insurance for your manufactured home, try looking into specialty carriers or consider making alterations to it.

How do mobile home insurance claims work?

When you file a property loss claim with your mobile home insurance company, you’ll have to pay your deductible before you receive any reimbursement. Your deductible is the amount you have to pay your insurer before they kick-in the rest. For example, if your deductible is $500 and you file a claim for $5,000 loss, you’d pay your insurer $500 and they’d cover the remaining $4,500.

The amount your insurance company is obligated to pay you in the event of a covered loss depends on what type of policy you have: agreed loss payment or replacement cost payment.

• Actual cash value/Agreed loss payment: Under this stipulation, the value of your home with regard to what you’re owed as a reimbursement will be calculated based on how much it’s depreciated. Agreed-loss policies are more affordable, but may not offer as much coverage if you’ve been living in your manufactured home for a long time.

• Replacement cost: Replacement cost replaces your property at the value of the property without accounting for depreciation, meaning what it costs to buy new. This is much more robust coverage, but it may be less affordable.

Mobile home insurance discounts

Insurance companies offer discounts on your premiums if you take safety precautions, like installing a security or anti-theft device in your mobile home. Your insurance company may also offer discounts for the following:

• Multiple-policy discounts: Also called bundling, if you purchase multiple policies from the same insurer, you may get a discount on some of them.

• New home discount: Discounts for new homes, with the threshold age defined by your policy.

• Senior discount: Some insurers may offer a discount to customers above a certain age, even those as young as 50.

• Original owner discount: Some insurers offer a discount if you are the original titleholder of your mobile or manufactured home.