The reality of insurance companies and caravan water tanks

Imagine you crashed your car and van. You survived, and next morning you find yourself in a motel room, aching from the rollover, watching my trailer sway videos on your laptop over breakfast to figure out what happened. You’re so impressed you’re about to sign up to my Patreon.

Mid click, you’re interrupted by a knock at the door. You open up to find a man wearing the uniform of your insurance company. He’s carrying a small holdall, staring at you through horn-rimmed glasses, lips pursed, unsmiling eyes, neat and orderly.

“Mr Jones?” enquires the visitor, briskly.

“Yes”, you stammer.

“I am an associate of your insurer, here in connection with your insurance claim.”

You weren’t expecting this. The man waits a moment. Then he tried again.

“You do recall your insurance claim?”

You nod.

“I would guess you’re Mr Jones, right?”

For some reason all you can do is muster another nod. The man seems used to such reactions.

“We need to check some weights. Specifically, yours. May I come in?”.

You move back, open the door further and the insurance man steps inside. He opens his bag and produces a set of scales. He glances towards your laptop, which is still playing my video.

“Looks like I caught you at breakfast. Sorry about that.”

You try some small talk as he switches the scales on.

“Just burgers and chips, really.”

The man looks up, scales ready.

“Ah, hamburgers. The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast. Now Mr Jones, kindly step onto these scales.”

You do as you’re bid. The man peers at the scales, waits a moment.

Then a phone is produced and taps made on the screen.

“Thank you Mr Jones. Now, please remove your shirt.”

“My what?”

“Your shirt, Mr Jones.”

“What?”

“English, Mr Jones, do you speak it?”

“Yes!”

“Then you know what I’m saying. Please remove your shirt.”

You remove your shirt.

The visitor rummages in his bag and produces a tape measure.

“Hold still, Mr Jones”.

You hold still. Practiced hands loop the tape around your midriff.

“Ummm….why are we doing this?”

More taps on the phone screen. “Weights, Mr Jones, weights.”

“Yes, you weighed me, but what’s with the tape measure?”

The visitor paused.

“You weigh 90kg, Mr Jones, and furthermore, we calculate that…you could ingest twelve tasty burgers, which means you could weigh…..up to 100kg”.

You’re appalled.

“But I didn’t! I wouldn’t! I haven’t!”

The man is immoveable.

“But you could. So we will assume you have. Good day, Mr Jones.”

———–

Much the same applies to water tanks. I’ve spoken to industry insiders, and caravan insurers are not going to “assume your water tanks are full in the event of an accident and say you’re overweight to deny a claim”. This is why.

In any given insurance claim the default position is that insurer has to pay. The burden of proof is on the insurer to prove the claim is invalid, and there is an ombudsman to keep them in check so it’s not a matter of simply deny, delay, depose – that doesn’t work in Australia.

One way prove the claim is invalid begins with proving the rig was overweight. But merely being overweight is not sufficient to deny – the fact the rig is overweight has to be the reason or a major contributing factor to the crash. If for example you had hail damage then the roadworthiness of the rig would be irrelevant.

So what an insurer would need to do for this ‘water tanks’ myth to be correct is something like:

1. collect all the debris

2. reconstruct the caravan

3. make proveable assumptions about water tanks being full, or not, or whatever

4. further prove that the state of the water tanks was a cause, or major contribution to the crash sufficient to deny the claim which will involve a lot of speculation about dynamics as it could be an overweight van with filled tanks is more stable than one under with empty tanks. Lots of engineers will make a lot of money in the court case and there will be a lot of calculations.

All this will be very complicated, and take a LOT of time, paying expert witnesses and so on. Then the opposition will have counter-experts, so no guaranteed success.

Now you may be thinking that insurance companies are always looking to deny claims. Not quite. They’re looking for the least-cost exit out of a claim, which may be to deny, or to pay. This is why they will write of repairable cars, as it’s easier just to write off rather than go through the hassle of repair. And it may well be easier for them to pay out than try and expensively avoid a payout with no guarantee of success.

But none of this means that you have carte blanche to drive overweight vehicles or trailers – do that and you are definitely taking all sorts of risks with insurance and the law, and if filling your water tanks puts you over a limit, well, then you can’t fill them. You shouldn’t be towing a trailer that’s so close to the limit filled tanks puts it over, and no caravan manufacturer should sell a van that can only be towed in a specific configuration of tank fill.

And remember if there is something like a fatality, then it’s not about insurance any more and the crash investigators are certainly going to look at everything very closely, weights included and reconstructions, as has been proven in the past in a recent well-publicised case.