Static home caravan insurance – helping with definitions

Sometimes, some people may become a little confused over terms such as static home caravan insurance, park homes and static caravans.

It probably has to be acknowledged that some insurance providers may use slightly ambiguous terms to describe different forms of caravan use but hopefully the discussion below will help you understand the issues and the form of insurance cover you may require.

Different uses

Although there are many different forms of caravan, typically only two are ever used in the context of the word home – these are park homes and static caravans.

Insurance providers typically see a significant difference in the risk profile of somewhere that you occupy permanently as your normal place of residence and somewhere else that may be used occasionally during the year for holidays or other recreational activities.

Therefore, although you may occasionally describe your static caravan as your home away from home, an insurance provider may see the use of the word home as meaning permanent occupation.

What this means is that typically in insurance terminology, a park home is regarded as your permanent place of domicile and as such your home, whereas a static caravan is not a home and cannot be occupied on a permanent basis under the terms of typical static caravan insurance (the same may apply for touring caravans and touring caravan insurance).

Two forms of insurance cover

As a result of the above, insurance providers may typically use the definition that:

• a static caravan requires static caravan insurance (even if you wish to refer to it as static home caravan insurance) but typically this will not cover permanent occupation of caravan as your main place of domicile;

• a caravan you occupy as your permanent place of residence may require park home insurance.

Some complexities arising with static home caravan insurance

It may not be safe to presume that if you decide to live permanently in a static caravan (e.g. pending the building of a new house) that park home insurance will necessarily cover your situation.

The reason for that is that park home policies may contain certain requirements of the site that your caravan is based on, such as it being formally licensed as being suitable for permanent occupation by the local authorities.  That may be something that might not apply in situations where you were living permanently in a static caravan on a private field site.

At times, your own position may be complicated and you may not immediately be able to see which category you come into – something that may explain the confusion of terminology in static home caravan insurance.  It that is the case, we would be only too pleased to offer our expertise in helping you understand which form of caravan cover may be appropriate.