Finally got insurance!

[ahh_me2]

Well, it has taken me 4 months to secure insurance on my cube van!
https://vanlivingforum.com/Thread-Chevy-C-K-3500

I bought it on April 15th, and got insurance on August 14th.
I was beginning to think it would never happen and had already started investigating other vehicle options
as the van I have been living in ( https://vanlivingforum.com/Thread-Van-Conversion-POC )
was just a bit too small for my needs, although it has worked quite well otherwise.

It turns out here in Alberta, Canada, that a cube van is automatically classed as a commercial vehicle.
Apparently many insurance companies have offices for personal lines and for commercial lines, but rarely
in the same building and there is a dis-connect between the two.

I found a good broker, that was able to explain how this works to me, and he knows which companies
have both lines under the same roof making it possible to get "personal" insurance through the commercial lines side of things.

The insurance rate is reasonable as it is only about $200 a year more than my 86 Ford van.

So now I can finally get back to work on Elsie(cube van) because I had stopped all work pending getting insurance.

I must say it's a big relief!

 

[Almost There]

Congratulations!

Wow, four months - I don't think I could have taken that much stress. I went nuts for a week trying to get insurance when Optimum wanted off liability because I was doing a DIY conversion.

If you don't mind me asking, what insurance company did you finally end up with?

Oh, and if you don't have to, don't do what I did and ask about getting RV coverage for it once you're done... If you do ask, put it very carefully in a 'what happens IF'....there's big cans of worms being opened once you say 'I'm doing this' to a vehicle. I don't know if you remember, but I asked my broker about moving to RV insurance and opened all kinds of insurance hell.

 

[ahh_me2]

I ended up with Wawanesa, but i am currently insured with Intact, and it was my brokers for Intact that were of no help and pretty much told me it couldn't be done.
So this new broker to whom I was referred to by a friend, checked with an underwriter from Intact and found out they would actually insure me on this cube van, albeit at a higher price than Wawanesa.

So I went with Wawanesa and had to switch over my other vehicles to seal the deal.

I told the broker that I wanted to build a semi camper in it as my 2 main hobbies are gold prospecting/mining and flying larger RC helicopters. So a traditional camper wouldn't work for me because "sleeps 4 or 6 or 8" is somewhat useless to me. What I needed was camping facilities with storage and workbench to wrench on the heli's and camping and storage for my mining gear.

He has simply classed it as pleasure vehicle, and told me if I convert to RV then I would need to deal with whatever is required from a registration process, but the rate he quoted me was the same either way.

SO I'm going to lay low so to speak, make a basic conversion for the essentials(cooking/heating/sleeping) get through the winter and revise my plans as needed next spring.

 

[Almost There]

Then it was my old broker who was being a lazy #$%^. They are agents for both Intact and Wawanesa as well as Optimum that I was covered through at the time that all hell broke loose.

Laying low is a good idea! The term 'diy convert to camper' apparently turns loose the gremlins from hades at the insurance offices in most if not all of Canada.

Since RV coverage isn't in the realm of possibility for me there's no point in redoing the registration so I'm just going to let sleeping dogs lie.

 

[66788]

Congratulations!

Wow, four months - I don't think I could have taken that much stress. I went nuts for a week trying to get insurance when Optimum wanted off liability because I was doing a DIY conversion.

If you don't mind me asking, what insurance company did you finally end up with?

Oh, and if you don't have to, don't do what I did and ask about getting RV coverage for it once you're done... If you do ask, put it very carefully in a 'what happens IF'....there's big cans of worms being opened once you say 'I'm doing this' to a vehicle. I don't know if you remember, but I asked my broker about moving to RV insurance and opened all kinds of insurance hell.

Yep.   Progressive cancelled me on two vans just for inquiring about insuring a self built RV.

Now I insure a 15 passenger window van and a 1 ton cargo van.   Nothing more.

 

[ahh_me2]

Wow, four months - I don't think I could have taken that much stress. I went nuts for a week trying to get insurance when Optimum wanted off liability because I was doing a DIY conversion.

Well, it has taken more like 6 months!
Middle of September I got an email from my broker saying Ins. Co. couldn't process my file due to missing info.
They wanted to know exactly what my occupation is, and exactly what will the 2 vehicles be used for.
They issued another 30 day temp pink slip.

So I've been impatiently waiting for this whole thing to come to an end and either get my pink slips and formal policy in the mail, or an outright denial on the cube van.
Needless to say I haven't been doing much work on the build, as I didn't want to waste time and money if I was to be denied coverage.

Have been going stir crazy waiting everyday for the mail, and well, I guess today is my lucky day!

I now have coverage for one year, pink slips in place, and I can FINALLY get back to the build!

It's about time as it is starting to get cold up here, and it would kinda suck having to build in sub zero weather.