A mobile home is insured on its own policy form, not the homeowners form a stick-built house uses, and so is a park model. The form covers the same things, the home, your belongings, your liability and the cost of living elsewhere after a covered loss, but it is written for the way a manufactured home is built, moved and anchored. Around Cedar Point that means homes in parks, homes on their own lots outside Jacksonville and Newport, and the park models kept in the parks near the Bogue Banks beaches.
Mobile homes in parks and on their own land
Whether the home sits on a rented pad in a park or on land you own changes the application, not the form. In a park, the lot and the common areas are the park owner’s to insure; your policy covers the home, its contents and your liability. On your own land, the policy also looks at outbuildings, decks and the land itself. Either way the first questions are the same: the year, the make and model, whether the home is tied down and on a permanent foundation, and whether it is your primary residence, a seasonal place or a rental.
Park models near the beach
A park model is the small recreational home, built to be moved but usually kept in one place, that fills the parks near Emerald Isle and along the Bogue Banks. It is written for how it is actually used: seasonal or year-round, owner-occupied or rented to guests. Tell the agency where it sits, how often you are there, and whether it is ever rented. A park model used as a year-round home is a different risk from one used three weekends a summer, and the policy should say which.
Wind, hail and flood
On the coast, a mobile home faces the same weather as a stick-built house, and the policy questions are the same. Ask what the wind and hail deductible is, in dollars, and whether windstorm is covered or excluded. And remember that no mobile home policy covers flood; the North Carolina Department of Insurance says the same of homeowners policies in one sentence: “Homeowners insurance policies do not cover flood damage.” Flood is a separate policy, through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood insurer, and a mobile home can carry one.
Why the auto policy belongs in the same conversation
More than one company writes mobile homes in North Carolina and South Carolina, and the companies that write them also write auto. Owners of mobile homes are too often handed one policy and told that is all there is. Putting the home and the household’s cars on one review is how the agency compares the companies that write both, and it is often the better arrangement for the whole household. That is the point of bundling.
What to have ready
The serial plate or the title (year, make, model), a note on whether the home is tied down and on a permanent foundation, how it is used, your current declarations page if you have one, and the vehicles in the household. Call (910) 421-2180 or start online.
