Hello to all! Thank you for continuing to support our site. I know we’re not the best at updating. It appears that living in a home and remodeling all the time leaves one with not a lot of time to sit down and type out one’s experiences. Although, sometimes, I would really love just hanging out here at MyMobileHomeMakeover.com with the rest of you, rather than sheet rocking or laying floor!
I wanted to share some information we have obtained recently, and it’s information that has proved to be quite useful for us regarding our home-owner’s insurance on our 1995 double wide home.
As I was searching around the Web for some information about our mobile home, I happened upon a site that discussed the differences between a “mobile home” and a “manufactured home.” I want you to all understand the importance of this distinction because I read this news provided at that site with great interest. For many years (17 to be exact), we have only been able to insure our double wide home for the original price we paid for it…about $40,000. Our home is paid off and we’ve done quite a bit of work to it worth tens of thousands of dollars. Imagine how difficult it would be for us to obtain a new home these days with only a $40,000 insurance payout in the event our home was damaged or destroyed!
According to this site by The U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, if your home was built before June 15, 1976, it is considered a “Mobile Home”. If your home was purchased after that date, it is considered a “Manufactured Home”. To be sure of this, I checked the title of our home and it does, indeed, say “Manufactured Home” on it rather than “Mobile Home”. It was built in 1995. Our HUD tag on our home has faded, so it is no longer red. So if you look and see a tag with a HUD certification on it on your home, and the home was built after the date listed above, you are looking at a Manufactured Home. (No, this does not mean we are renaming our site to MyManufacturedHomeMakeover.com :-)
So, “what’s the big deal” you say? Well, I’ll tell you.
As I mentioned before, for nearly two decades, we have only been able to insure our home with a policy that covers our original purchase price. There is no way this would recoup our losses if something were to happen to our home. As it turns out, in the last month, we have had some changes in the status of our home and property and have done some research on other insurance companies. We started with the one we have our auto insurance through because we get a great group discount through Big D’s employer, and we would also get a discount for having both policies through the same company and payroll deduction for premiums.
But even without these advantages, the greatest part was that I explained to the policy salesperson that I recently learned of this distinction between a manufactured home and a mobile home. I made it clear that our home isn’t considered a mobile home and therefore should not be limited to the loss payout of the original purchase price.
Well, lo and behold, after speaking to their underwriting department, they agreed with me and we were able to insure our property, our outbuilding, and our home…and the home at replacement at the amount we chose (which was determined by what we were willing to pay), and that was $140,000.
WOW! We could actually replace our home for that amount! You cannot imagine my excitement when we received this news. it is more expensive for sure. But not much. It’s just over the $500 mark for the whole year. We’ve paid nearly $300 a year for a $40,000 replacement payout for the last two decades. So, $500 is a blessing for this kind of peace of mind!
So, dear readers, I implore you to use this argument and come back and let us know whether you’ve had success with your insurance company or if you’ve tried with a new company. If you own a home that was built after June 15, 1976, it is considered a “manufactured home”. These homes are subject to all of the regulations and certification processes that HUD mandates and, therefore, it should be considered this way when insuring it.
Oh, and as a footnote…our attorney recently told us that he deals with clients all the time who don’t have a title to their manufactured home. DON’T THROW YOUR TITLE OUT! It is so difficult to sell your home without it and if your state is anything like ours, your local DMV won’t have anything to do with replacing them. You must appeal to the State to make that happen. Make sure you obtain one when you purchase a manufactured home and keep it in a safe place. This document was very helpful to us when we asked about this homeowner’s policy. I was able to cite the label on the title that distinguished our home as a “manufactured home” rather than a “mobile home”. They also asked if we had a HUD seal on the outside of the home, which we do. So, run along…look for the HUD seal, and get on the horn with your insurance company!
I hope to be back soon with a post about another bathroom remodel…and yet another one as well. And I look forward to sharing with you our experiences with contractors in double wide homes.
Good luck and enjoy the Fall!
The McGees
While mbrcatz has it essentially right, we need to know what state the home is in. In most instances, you have homeowners coverage on your primary residence and you can extend liability coverage to cover the cottage from there, or even a renters (tenants) policy if you do not own another home.
This information is very informative and helpful for people ,those who want to purchase home insurance policy.
Thanks for the information on this. My husband and I have been poking around trying to get a better deal on our insurance. It is actually quite hard to find good advice that isn't marketing mambo jumbo. I work as a teacher and my husband is a heavy equipment operator so insurance is like a foreign language. We found a few things that were pretty helpful like this guide: MANUFACTURED & MOBILE HOME INSURANCE: OVERVIEW. It is where I first read about the HUD designating the term Manufactured Home instead of Mobile Home. Interesting!
Thank you for sharing, Judy!
What insurance company did you get your manufactured home through? The only company we have found is Foremost
Hi Shirley! Thanks for visiting our site. We got our insurance through Met Life. If you call them, be sure to tell them your place is a MANUFACTURED home, not a mobile home, if in fact it was built after 1976. If it was, and you have a title, it should list the home on the title as a Manufactured Home, so be sure to use this language. Once I told them that distinction, they started cooperating with me. They did need to speak with their underwriters, but ultimately it was accepted. We are in upstate NY. When we bought a home in Florida, it was much more difficult to get insurance and it was very pricey. There was only one state-run insurance policy we could get, it was only for the cost we paid for the house and no more, and it was $2400 annually and DID NOT include flood insurance. This, of course, is because of the issue of hurricanes there. Good luck to you!
We are in the process of remodeling mobile home/manufactured home and we sincerely appreciate the information you have compiled. Thank you!!
Thanks so much for visiting! We're so glad you're enjoying the information here.
Awesome blog post! I really enjoyed reading this content.
I live in a park in Florida where I own the lot and the mobile home. I can't get insurance because the value is under $100,000 and nobody will insure it. I just won't make any improvement on it and if a hurricane blows it away I call put a FEMA trailer on my lot I still own.
Thanks for visiting our site, Elaine…and for commenting with your experience. That really stinks that you can't insure your home. We always felt really unsafe when we could not insure for over $37000. But now, we are lucky enough to insure for the actual assessed value of our home. It really gives us peace of mind. Florida is a difficult place to be for sure, but up until last year, New York really didn't experience that much hurricane weather. Little did we know Sandy would hit here!
Good luck with your projects and happy remodeling!
The McGees
Insurance is a hassle for manufactured homes. We put a basement under our home and just recently got our ins. co to insure it as a class A dwelling since it is on a permanent foundation. Some ins companies wouldn't even insure us.