REH,
Having camp insurance is surely the best protection. I remember around last August where an entire camp with about a dozen or so campers was pretty much destroyed by fire. This happened here in Georgia and it was during the middle of the week so there were no hunters there as it was pre-season. The sad thing is that by being located back in an isolated area, it took the local all-volunteer fire department extra time also because the locks had to be cut on the gates along the way in order to get to the camp. Some of the propane tanks had erupted by the time they got on the scene and the fires went from one camper over to the next because of the higher winds that day. I am sure that several hunters were totally devasted as well upon hearing the news. Most of these hunters lived in other counties and some even in another state. I remember back in 1978, we began leasing property for our hunting club. It only consisted of about 8 of us which were all friends and relatives. We had several campers including pop-ups and also some regular 20-24 ft campers. I remember we would all get together in the early fall and try to clean any leaves and other debris from around and under our campers. We did this to try and eliminate the possibility of fire damage. We hunted this property until 2002 and we also enjoyed it year-round because it bordered a massive lake with great fishing and we fished from the boat dock on many, many nights while catching 1-3 pound crappies and being able to have our supper cooked on the end of the boat dock. Man, what a life. The owners of the property died and their son and daughter cut and sold all of the timber in 2003. They then sold the property for $300,000 and a friend of mine bought it. He turned around and resold it on the same day (on the other end of the table) for $600,000. We all thought the $300,000 (without the timber) was ludicrious but when $600,000 was paid, I just couldn't believe it. I thought the man that bought it had more money than sense and would never be able to get full dollars worth. But a visit to the tax office confirmed last week that he sold it for $750,000 recently to the owner of a Medical Pathology Testing Lab. I can not conceive of what might be done next but I guess I know now why the lab testing is so expensive.
Campers are not cheap either. I would surely suggest getting insurance as soon as possible and be sure to take plenty of photos of every possible detail of your camper so that its value can be determined more easily. Looks like you've got some good insurance companies to start checking with.
