Your HiAce conversion needs campervan insurance, not car insurance

Your car policy is unlikely to follow a HiAce through a camper conversion. RACV won’t rate a van as a motorhome until it carries a fixed bed, a fridge, a cooktop and a plumbed sink fed by a water tank. Campervan insurance starts with proving those fixtures exist.

Will my car insurer just add the campervan to my policy?

Probably not, because a finished conversion no longer matches the vehicle your car policy describes, and it doesn’t automatically qualify as a motorhome either. Motorhome insurers set entry criteria first. RACV asks that a vehicle be purpose-built, or carry a camper unit permanently attached to it, and lists a fixed bed, fridge, cooktop and plumbed sink as the floor.

KT Insurance draws a similar line, wanting built-in facilities for sleeping, eating, preparing food and storing it before a motorhome, campervan or pop-top qualifies for cover.

That leaves a gap, and plenty of builds sit in it. A HiAce with a mattress on a plywood platform, a gas burner that lives in a milk crate and a jerry can of water in the back is too modified to describe honestly as a panel van, and not fixed enough to clear the motorhome test.

Imports raise a second question that insurers rarely answer in public. Let’s Go Caravan Insurance splits the motorhomes it writes into three classes, Class A for bus and coach-style rigs, Class B for campervans on a van chassis, and Class C for the larger ones, while its motorhome page takes no published position on self-built, converted or imported vans. Ask the underwriter directly rather than reading a product page and hoping.

What does a specialist insurer want to see from an owner-built van?

Proof that the build is finished, permanently fitted and matches the fixture list, and the cheapest time to learn what that means is before you start cutting. KT Insurance asks owners to get in touch before any conversion work begins, and will cover the van at three points: before the build, while it’s under way, and once it’s a finished RV.

That staged approach matters more than it sounds. A stripped van sitting in a driveway with its lining out and a pallet of lithium, cabinetry and appliances stacked beside it is exactly the risk nobody has written down anywhere.

No insurer publishes a documentation checklist for an owner-built van, but somebody eventually has to put a number on what you made, and that somebody won’t have watched you make it. Keep supplier receipts for the fridge, the battery system, the roof and the joinery, and take dated photos at each stage of the build.

The upside of being on the right product is how modifications get treated. RACV says modifications, options and accessories fitted to the vehicle are picked up automatically under its motorhome policies, which is a very different starting position from itemising every addition on a car policy.

What does motorhome cover include that a car policy doesn’t?

It treats the van as somewhere you live as well as something you drive, which is where the extra benefits sit. KT Insurance lists these inclusions on its motorhome policy:

• Emergency medical transport to $10,000
• Excess-free breakdown towing to $1,000
• Excess-free re-keying or re-coding to $750
• Windscreen repair to $500
• Contents cover as standard, for theft, fire, vandalism, malicious damage and weather damage including hail, storm, flood and earthquake

RACV carries liability cover of up to $20 million where the van is at fault in a crash, and its Complete Care policy limits emergency transport and accommodation to $1,500.

Let’s Go Caravan Insurance gives you $1,000 of contents automatically, rising as far as $5,000 within its sublimits, plus $1,500 towards hiring a motorhome after a theft and $2,400 towards somewhere to stay.

A car policy pays out on the van. A motorhome policy pays out on the van, the fit-out bolted into it, and a roof over your head while it’s being repaired.

How is agreed value set on a van you built yourself?

By agreement with the insurer, not by a valuation guide, because no guide has an entry for your van. Let’s Go Caravan Insurance describes agreed value as a fixed sum paid if the van is written off, while under market value you get the sum you nominated or what the van is worth on the day, whichever of the two is lower.

On an owner-built van that difference is the whole argument. Market value on an ageing panel van reflects what ageing panel vans sell for, not the roof, the joinery and the electrical system you put inside it.

Agreed value also isn’t a box you tick online. Let’s Go says you have to arrange it by speaking to its customer service team, and it may cost you extra in premium. RACV offers agreed value on only its top two motorhome tiers and applies market value to the rest, so the tier you choose decides whether your build is insured for a set figure or a shrinking one.

There’s one more question worth putting to a specialist. Let’s Go will replace a new motorhome written off in its first three years, counted from registration or purchase, where cover has run without a break. Whether a van you converted yourself is new under that wording isn’t obvious, so get the answer in writing.

What happens if you don’t tell the insurer about the conversion?

You end up holding a policy that describes a vehicle you no longer own, and the mismatch surfaces at the worst possible moment, with an assessor standing in front of a kitchen the policy has never heard of. The insurer priced a panel van. You’re asking it to pay for a motorhome.

If a claim goes badly, the path out is slow. The Financial Rights Legal Centre says insurers generally get 30 days to deal with a complaint before you can take it to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, and that deadlines apply to lodging there too.

AFCA can look into a complaint that a financial firm misled or lied to you. Its general cap on dispute compensation stood at $631,500 as at the July 2025 factsheet, with $316,000 where the complaint is about a broker, and up to $6,300 for non-financial loss, meaning stress, inconvenience and delay. Those are ceilings on an argument, not a substitute for being insured properly.

Best for anyone whose HiAce has a fixed bed, a fridge, a cooktop and a plumbed sink: a specialist motorhome policy with an agreed value, arranged while the build is still a pile of receipts. Declaring it early costs you a re-rated premium. Arguing about it afterwards costs months, and possibly the van.