Insurance Implications of Off-Road Recoveries (1 Viewer)

[TeCKis300]

On a leap of faith, reached out to social media and the most incredible group of strangers came out to make some magic happen. 4 guys showed up on 1.5hrs of notice. None hesitated to put their own rigs in harms way, one almost tipping over themselves. Two incredible jeeps did jeep things to blaze trail over some serious sidehills to get on the high side as the flopped vehicle blocked the only way in and out of the peak. Took 3 winches, coordination, and at that moment couldn't be a more perfect team.

The commercial operators would have dragged the rig down on its side totaling it for sure, while charging $5k+. Doubtful insurance would cover that part.

Lesson learned - get yourself on the local FB social media recovery page before wheeling in any region. There's enthusiasts out there ready to help at the drop of a hat. We couldn't have come from more different backgrounds, except for the shared love of wheeling and the outdoors.

Rig is recovered. Drove back on all 4s under her own power. Smooth as butter, but with some skinned panels.

 

[christianleeboy]

On a leap of faith, reached out to social media and the most incredible group of strangers came out to make some magic happen. 4 guys showed up on 1.5hrs of notice. None hesitated to put their own rigs in harms way, one almost tipping over themselves. Two incredible jeeps did jeep things to blaze trail over some serious sidehills to get on the high side as the flopped vehicle blocked the only way in and out of the peak. Took 3 winches, coordination, and at that moment couldn't be a more perfect team.

The commercial operators would have dragged the rig down on its side totaling it for sure, while charging $5k+. Doubtful insurance would cover that part.

Lesson learned - get yourself on the local FB social media recovery page before wheeling in any region. There's enthusiasts out there ready to help at the drop of a hat. We couldn't have come from more different backgrounds, except for the shared love of wheeling and the outdoors.

Rig is recovered. Drove back on all 4s under her own power. Smooth as butter, but with some skinned panels.

View attachment 3353407

Glad the recovery went safely and the truck's back on the road. A good lesson learned for all of us! Thanks for sharing @TeCKis300

 

[manofthewoods]

On a leap of faith, reached out to social media and the most incredible group of strangers came out to make some magic happen. 4 guys showed up on 1.5hrs of notice. None hesitated to put their own rigs in harms way, one almost tipping over themselves. Two incredible jeeps did jeep things to blaze trail over some serious sidehills to get on the high side as the flopped vehicle blocked the only way in and out of the peak. Took 3 winches, coordination, and at that moment couldn't be a more perfect team.

The commercial operators would have dragged the rig down on its side totaling it for sure, while charging $5k+. Doubtful insurance would cover that part.

Lesson learned - get yourself on the local FB social media recovery page before wheeling in any region. There's enthusiasts out there ready to help at the drop of a hat. We couldn't have come from more different backgrounds, except for the shared love of wheeling and the outdoors.

Rig is recovered. Drove back on all 4s under her own power. Smooth as butter, but with some skinned panels.

View attachment 3353407

Thanks for posting the "rest of the story." Super cool that there are buddy's out there to help. Major beer for them!

 

[trudd]

My daughter and I watch a fair amount of Matt's Off-Road Recovery on the youtubes. Pretty fascinating stuff to a non-wheeling guy. I know you probably can't post it, but I can only imagine what that scene looked like! Glad it ended in the best possible scenario.

 

[bloc]

To back up Teckis' observation..

When I rolled that 80 in the mountains out of Ouray, the local support and total strangers coming together to help out was inspiring.

Someone I had driven past 1/4 mile down the trail heard it happen and came flying up to make sure I was ok. That person and his family helped me gather the yard sale of my crap that had scattered everywhere, then hauled me over an hour down into Ouray to find help putting the rig back on it's wheels. A super-friendly local police officer put me in touch with a guy that had a 100 with a 12k winch, but he didn't have enough experience to feel comfortable with the job. He called another local with the experience, but a rig that was too light. Plus the local officer warned me about the attitude of the state PD that technically had jurisdiction over where I had the accident.

We all went over an hour back up the mountain, righted the vehicle, I pulled the plugs to let the oil out of the CCs in order to get it running, (and clear out every mosquito within a 3-mile radius), the crew used a hi-lift on the passenger seat cushion to lift the windshield frame enough for me to see out of the truck, then led and followed me back down into town in case I had issues. That took five hours. The 100-owner even insisted I stay at his house for the night and eat dinner over driving back to durango which was the plan.

And no one would accept a dime.

Amazing, generous, selfless people all around. For some texan wandering around their mountains making a mess.

Lessons: strangers can be awesome, I am now much more patient with line choice, 80-series seat bottoms can survive a nuke, and at the time the Beaumont hotel in Ouray was owned by a really, really good dude. Not sure if he's still involved.. but consider staying there if you are in the area.

As for insurance.. they were kept out of it.

 

[DallasTide]

My insurance agent (who is a cruiserhead and possibly on this board) has assured me on multiple occasions that an offroad accident would be covered as a collision claim. He said they would probably hammer your premium on renewal or non-renew you, but it would be covered. Of course he could be full of s*** lol.

 

[TheGrrrrr]

Glad it all worked out about as well as could be hoped for under the circumstance.

As for the insurance question, I've looked into this a few times, and the answer always seems to come down to if the location of the incident is an officially numbered/named rd. Basically if it shows on a map with an official (read Federal, State, County, Township, Town, Village) number/name marking, its covered. One of my agents told me even campsites adjacent to covered roads are largely treated the way a grocery store parking lot would be. The big exceptions that he mentioned were designated off-road parks, possibly optional obstacles with a by-pass, and obviously unmarked or unofficial trails. The other exception is related to the modifications of the vehicle that could impact you in two ways. The first is that without a rider specifically covering aftermarket equipment, none of that will typically be covered. The second is related to aftermarket equipment contributing to the incident our potentially making the vehicle non-conforming to local laws for street use.

I would imagine every carrier/policy is different so it would be best to just ask before you go out.

 

[1world1love]

Glad it worked out. Things happen. You don’t even have to try too hard. Just a couple of weeks ago I saw a woman had rolled a Honda Pilot on it's side in our neighborhood. She just missed her turn and tried to make it, and wasn't even going that fast. It was a weird combination of factors. Certainly off-road, weird combinations of factors are more the rule than the exception.

My understanding is that most policies will cover anything on municipal roads. This would include county or state roads. Some BLM or FS roads may be covered if they are designated for passenger vehicles, but I understand from my agent that if it has the word jeep or 4x4 in the name or is signed as high-clearance only, that the claim may be denied.

 

[speakout525]

There is a new company in the mix. I am NOT recommending them, have no experience with them and I don't think they are even off the ground yet. ExpeditionPortal.com did a write up on them that I have copied and pasted below. The company can be found at Tredder - https://tredder.com/

Expedition Portal Write Up:
"Not exactly gear and not exactly exciting, insurance is both a legal requirement and a necessity for whatever rig you drive. But do you have enough insurance to cover both your overland vehicle and all its upgrades for the kinds of off-road adventures that you tackle? This is a serious question—one serious enough that David De Jesus founded Tredder just to answer it. We often invest thousands of dollars into our adventure vehicles and subject them to extreme environments and experiences, but run-of-the-mill insurance policies may not cover all your upgrades in all circumstances. Tredder is designed to fill that gap in your coverage with a bespoke policy built specifically for your four-wheel drive. You can register for availability and updates on Tredder’s website."

 

[Boston Mangler]

@TeCKis300 this is an awesome thread and point to bring up to get people thinking about it.

I am 99% sure i reached out to the same recovery group years ago when friend and i got stuck in muck at the Salton Sea for 2 days.

They rolled out at 2am, saw the mess, called some homies with bigger trucks, had us out, undamaged, and to safety within an hour.

ADAMANTLY refused any sort of payment, beer, food, and told me just to pass along the vibes. I was super super grateful, and have since rolled out in the middle of the night to assist with recoveries as well on several occasions, amazing group!

As a retired cop, who often offroaded with active or retired cops, we discussed this very thing regarding insurance coverage in accidents offroad.

Most of the above is correct regarding as long as its a numbered or designated "Road"

However, here in SoCal as you probably know, we have state parks (borrego), OHV areas (ocotillo), national forest (mt laguna). Some of which switch around in between. There is one trail in Mt Laguna that is national forest, than changes to state rec area, then back to national forest.

The rules seems to vary some on each type/classification.

The deeper we dug into this, the murkier it got. The general consensus (ALTHOUGH UNCONFIRMED) was that Ocotillo and its OHV status made it the easiest to have claims denied, because there are no actual designated and maintained roads and its mostly just a free for all, but there is mixed info on this.

There is no clear answer here, but its most definitely something to keep in the back of your mind.

I use the "OnX Hunt" app to determine borders of areas and classifications, as you know in SoCal, they all blend together and criss cross.

My .02

Good Post!

 

[KLF]

It may no longer be the case, but I remember asking my agent (State Farm) many years ago about this very thing and I was told that as long as you are not participating in a competitive event, you're covered.

 

[Jetboy]

I think the best way to think about comprehensive insurance for cars that it's really insurance for the bank, not the owner. And the bank really doesn't care what you do, the bank wants its collateral covered. The bank industry also most likely wrote the laws for car insurance coverage. The result is that they cover pretty much anything you do. Get drunk and drive into oncoming traffic? Covered. Dive into a lake? Covered. Someone steals it? Covered.

It's a pretty unusual situation that it wouldn't be covered.

Most insurance does have exclusions and it's worth reading the policy. But they're usually very limited by state law. And they lose in court all the time because everyone hates insurance companies.

The towing insurance part often does have a qualification that it must be on a road though. So that part is a little different sometimes. Especially third party towing products like AAA.

 

[TeCKis300]

Thanks for the input and its good knowledge to have ahead of an incident.

To close out the story, rig was rebuilt in a couple months once insurance decided to total it (too many cosmetics including ext skins, interior, airbags, pyrotechnical seatbelts), and an almost identical GX460 was found. A group of friends were able to go to the storage lot and get all the armor, winch,, roof rack, wheelset, off the flopped rig.

As this is almost a year later, and all parties are whole, I can post the recovery video. Tremendous group of guys. I've also given back and partaked in a couple recoveries with the FB group.

 

[Boston Mangler]

Thanks for the input and its good knowledge to have ahead of an incident.

To close out the story, rig was rebuilt in a couple months once insurance decided to total it (too many cosmetics including ext skins, interior, airbags, pyrotechnical seatbelts), and an almost identical GX460 was found. A group of friends were able to go to the storage lot and get all the armor, winch,, roof rack, wheelset, off the flopped rig.

As this is almost a year later, and all parties are whole, I can post the recovery video. Tremendous group of guys. I've also given back and partaked in a couple recoveries with the FB group.

Excellent!

The rabbit hole got even deeper when we started researching San Bernardino NF (Big Bear) I am up there often, as its one of my fav places.

But the forest service roads "close" from time to time, and its dang near impossible to figure out when.

Can see insurer saying "Sorry, road was technically closed, pound sand" Will that happen? doubtful, but ya never know.

Just stuff to keep in back of mind.

Like you said, same as a track day, although it would suck, ya gotta be able to walk away from a total loss, without financially putting yourself and family at risk if youre out playing.