Getting ready for a long distance move? Moving season (aka early summer) is upon us and that means thousands of people will be loading up moving trucks and moving on to new adventures. And if you are one of those people, you may be wondering whether you should get insurance on a U-haul? We recently did a long distance move and chose to use U-Haul’s insurance (called SafeMove). Here’s why.

WHY YOU SHOULD GET INSURANCE ON A U-HAUL.

We bought insurance on a U-Haul recently when we moved from Oklahoma to Arizona, and I think it was one of the smartest financial decisions we made during our move. Whew– moving is not easy. (Some bad financial decisions we made– eating out almost every single day for 2-3 weeks, overpaying for a nice hotel because we wanted to be able to really relax on the first night of our drive out, paying double rent and double utilities the first month when we were only living in one house… the list goes on. At least we made a good choice with the insurance 🙂 ).

(1) Your car insurance probably doesn’t cover any accidents related to the U-Haul. 

When you rent a car, almost always the car rental company will offer you their own insurance. And you should almost always decline that coverage because your regular auto insurance will usually cover any accidents that may occur while you are driving the rental. But that is not the case with insurance on a U-haul. Your regular auto insurance almost certainly will not cover any damage to the U-Haul and or your personal belongings inside. But, it’s worth it to take a look at your policy and find out if you are covered. Buying coverage offered by U-Haul will eliminate any uncertainty about whether you are covered by your regular auto policy.

(2) It’s not that expensive. 

Unlike my stance on health insurance (we use a health care sharing ministry as opposed to traditional health insurance which you can read more about by clicking here), I definitely think U-Haul’s insurance is worth the price. Considering how expensive an accident can be when you are driving a U-Haul, getting insurance on a U-Haul is really not that expensive. We recently rented a 20 foot truck for our long distance move, which cost about $1000. Insurance on that $1000 was about $80 for the five days we had the truck. That $80 included a damage waiver (accidental damage to the truck), damage to our personal belongings from collisions/fire/wind/overturn of the truck, and medical and life coverage.

(3) It will give you peace of mind. 

Obviously you don’t expect to get in an accident, but for less than $20 a day of your rental you’ll have some peace of mind. For me, I just couldn’t imagine how devastating it would be to get in an accident in the middle of our move– emotionally and financially. That kind of collision could end up costing you thousands of dollars not only in repairing damage to the truck, but damage to your personal items being carried in the truck, not to mention injuries to the driver/passenger of the truck. I don’t know about you, but for me, peace of mind is everything (especially during an otherwise unstable time when you are moving).

(4) It covers a lot. 

SafeMove covers damage to the truck, to your belongings, and includes medical and life coverage. So imagine the worst case scenario where you get into an accident that causes damage to all three– your truck, belongings, and your body (and or your passengers’ bodies). It’s not hard to see how quickly that could get REALLY expensive. You can read about what exactly is covered on their policy on their website here.

All this being said, I’ve never known anyone who has actually had to use insurance on a U-Haul, in other words, I don’t know anyone who has been in a collision driving a U-Haul and had to take advantage of their coverage. That means I don’t know exactly how all of this plays out and how big of a hassle it is to deal with. But I do know one thing, if you don’t buy it, you definitely aren’t covered which is simply too big of a risk to take, especially when you are in the middle of a long distance move.

Here at Deeply in Debt, we offer tons of personal finance advice based on our own journey paying off $650k of student loan debt. If you have student loan debt and aren’t sure where to start or what to do, I highly recommend the CFA’s over at Student Loan Planner to help you put together a solid financial plan for your student loan debt. We personally used them and it literally saved us over $200,000 on our student loans. You can check out the Student Loan Planner here.

For the comments: Is insurance on a U-Haul worth it to you? Why or why not? 

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