Mobile home and manufactured home insurance

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

Mobile home insurance protects your personal property as well as the structure of your home. Your policy should have provisions to reimburse 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 types 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 RVs

The size of your manufactured home may affect your premiums, the sum you have to pay periodically to keep your insurance policy in force.

How does mobile home insurance protect me?

Your mobile home or manufactured home insurance is composed of different types of coverages. Each one will have a limit of coverage, 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 part of the claim that exceeds the insurance company’s obligation to you. Coverage limits vary from company to company, and you may be able to purchase larger limits by increasing your premiums.

Your coverage in each of these components is contingent on the damage or loss being caused by a risk named in the policy. These risks, which will be called something like 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
• Windstorms and hail
• Theft and vandalism
• Water from bursting pipes
• Explosions
• Riots and commotions

Depending on your insurance company, damage caused by earthquakes, or other earth movements, and floods may not be covered. (Check the “Exclusions” section of your policy.) If your policy doesn’t cover these perils, you may have to purchase additional insurance to get the relevant coverage.

However, it may be possible to purchase an all-risk, all-perils, or comprehensive mobile home insurance policy, meaning that it’s up to the insurer to prove that damage or loss you incur isn’t covered by your insurance. These types of policies are more expensive, but offer much more robust coverage.

The following coverage types will be included in your policy:

Dwelling or structure coverage

This coverage protects the actual structure of your manufactured or mobile home. That means the walls, the base, the roof, or the windows.

Other structures coverage

Other structures coverage is for additional structures and buildings associated with your unit, like a shed, a porch, or a garage.

Personal property coverage

Protects your belongings inside the house. Virtually any personal property is covered, from furniture to PlayStations. Items outside the home, like bicycles, are also covered.

Liability protection

If someone gets injured in or around your home, they may sue you. Liability protection helps pay any damages you owe.

Medical payments to others

Any medical expenses incurred by a guest in your home may be covered with this coverage, which may also be called guest medical protection.

Damage to property of others

If you’re liable for breaking something that belongs to one of your guests, you may be able to get the expense reimbursed.

Additional living expenses

This coverage is for when a covered peril causes your home to be uninhabitable. It may pay any additional expenses you incur while relocating or staying elsewhere while the damage is repaired or cleaned up.

Agreed loss payment or replacement cost payment

The amount your insurance company is obligated to pay you in the event your home is destroyed is determined one of two ways.

Agreed loss payment

Under this stipulation, the value of your home with regard to what you’re owed as a reimbursement may 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. Also called actual cash value.

Replacement cost payment

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.

What if I only visit my manufactured home occasionally?

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

Primary residence

If you or someone in your family lives in your home for a minimum amount of time, as 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.

Additional manufactured home insurance features

As with renters insurance and homeowners insurance, mobile home insurance has additional coverages that offer small amounts of reimbursement for expenses you might not otherwise associate with your daily living.

You may have to pay extra for some of those additional coverages, or they may be offered in your base policy at no extra cost to you.

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.
• Tie-down equipment.
• Golf cart coverage. Includes both damage to the golf cart and damage caused by the golf cart that you’re liable for.
• Fire department service.
• 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.

Mobile home insurance discounts

Your insurance company may offer discounts on your premiums. Some of these include:

• 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.