You can travel with peace of mind.

Building a DIY camper is one thing. But once you're done, you also want to protect your creation against accidents and accidents. Good motorhome insurance is therefore essential. Unfortunately, the traffic that you will certainly end up in with your DIY bus is a very dangerous place. an accident happened quickly. Also, a small damage is quickly made when parking or the like.

Many insurance agents have little or no experience with insuring mobile homes. and if you start talking about a self-made bus, it is completely unfamiliar territory. When we converted Debie, the insurance was through our 'standard' broker. it was therefore just a normal third-party insurance without cover of the household effects. our debit was still registered as a light truck at that time.

As long as you are not looking for comprehensive insurance, which also covers the household effects, such a standard insurance with your current broker seems to me to be sufficient. If you want more, it's a bit more complicated

A motorhome insurance for rental.

Our search began when we were looking for rental insurance. we wanted to share our bus with others. A very nice idea, but it soon became clear that our current insurance broker could not offer insurance for rental. no ordinary (mandatory) BA insurance and certainly no comprehensive insurance at all. We consider such a comprehensive insurance for rental to be a must. This way, our tenants can leave with peace of mind, and they do not have huge costs if an accident does happen while traveling.

What thought to be a quick administrative change quickly turned into a months-long search for someone who wanted to insure us Debie for rental under an Omnium Policy.
We have contacted almost every insurer directly and through various brokers. P&V, Acerta, DVV, AxA, AG insurance, Ethias, Vivium, …. but also many other smaller insurers. We were really at our wits' end.

Until we got to know Ruwelka.

Our search ended at a small office in West Flanders

After a long search we came across Ruwelka Insurance. This small insurance office in West Flanders is specialized in motorhome insurance. They actually do quite magical things. since we truly believe that they are the only ones in Belgium who can offer comprehensive insurance for rental.

A small office may be a bit off, but nothing could be further from the truth. it has many advantages. Ruwelka is much more accessible than a gigantic society. No long waiting tunes and 6 choice menus when calling, but just a direct point of contact.

The insurance policies that Ruwelka offers are simply from large institutions. Our Omnium for rental, for example, is simply an AxA policy. and our breakdown assistance via VAB. which is quite a punishment because we have had direct contact with AxA/VAB for both our travel assistance and insurance and they simply could not offer these insurances. This was also not possible through our current broker.

The only caveat that we have with our insurance policies with Ruwelka is that our Debie had to officially become a camping vehicle. Since until then Debie was just a light truck, this was quite an adventure. but more about that in another blog post.

Ruwelka's insurance also has a large coverage, many countries have been approved. on our page 'For rent' you will find an overview of all countries where we are covered.

Insurance is one thing, but what if something happens?

Ons Debie has been insured with Ruwelka since 2019 for rental under a comprehensive policy. luckily we haven't had to call much with bad news yet, but if there was a small damage, it was always quickly resolved.

the verdict

We are very happy that we have discovered Ruwelka insurance and are very grateful to them for providing a truly tailor-made insurance policy that literally no one else could or would not give us. We therefore recommend this to anyone with a self-build van. If you contact Ruwelka, be sure to let us know that you came to them through us! And be sure to say hello from us too!

PS: Ruwelka insurance has asked us to write this blog post, however they have not influenced the content or anything like that in any way. Despite their approach to this message, we are also genuinely satisfied customers!