Aftermarket Solar, Lithium and Custom Build Coverage

A policy describes a vehicle as it was when it was underwritten. An owner then spends three seasons improving it: four rooftop panels, a lithium house bank, an MPPT controller, an inverter, a satellite antenna, a bumper and rack package, a remodelled interior. None of that reaches the agent, and the declarations page still describes a coach as it left the dealer lot.

After a loss the adjuster prices what the document describes. They are not withholding anything, and treating it as bad faith gets an owner nowhere, because the person on the phone is reading a file that genuinely does not mention the build. The moment to have corrected it passed before the impact, which is the unflattering part of this page.

The scale of the gap surprises people. A camper van conversion runs $5,000 to $80,000 or more as a build, and a solar install with a lithium bank runs $1,500 to $12,000. Those are the numbers a policy silently values at nothing when the build is undeclared, and on a converted Sprinter the build is frequently worth more than the van underneath it.

Electrical upgrades are the most commonly undeclared and the most commonly damaged, because they live on the roof and in the compartments where impact energy goes. A hail strike takes panels. A low clearance strike takes panels, mounts and often the roof penetrations they were fed through. A rear impact takes an inverter and a battery bank mounted behind a bulkhead.

Two problems compound. The equipment is absent from the policy record, and the installation labour is absent from any parts database, so even where a carrier accepts the equipment there is nothing to price the wiring, the mounts, the roof penetrations and the commissioning against. Twelve volt and shore power wiring runs $400 to $5,500 as work in its own right, and that work does not appear as a line item anywhere in an automotive estimating system.

Lithium adds a safety dimension nobody enjoys discussing. A battery bank involved in an impact is not a component to be assessed casually, and a bank that took a mechanical shock may be sound, may be compromised internally, and cannot be judged from outside. Diagnostics here are one hour at $285 with a one hour minimum, credited against an authorised repair, because guessing about a lithium bank is not an option.

House battery replacement runs $500 to $5,500 and an inverter or charger replacement runs $750 to $4,500. Whether any of that lands on a claim or on you depends entirely on whether the system existed in the file before the loss.

A converted Sprinter, Transit or ProMaster is two assets sharing a registration. The chassis has a market value a database can find. The build has a value that exists only in receipts, photographs and the labour that went into it, and a cargo van in a valuation database is a cargo van whatever is inside it.

Self built conversions are the hardest case, because much of the value is unpaid labour and the receipts are for materials rather than for a finished vehicle. Professional conversions are easier, because there is an invoice for a build, but the invoice needs to be with the insurer rather than in a folder at home. Either way the work is to convert a build into a document before anything happens to it.

The same applies to expedition and overland builds, where suspension, storage, racks, water systems and auxiliary heat can add up to more than the base vehicle. Auxiliary heat augmentation runs $1,500 to $5,500. Roof reinforcement with a solar rack runs $750 to $6,500. Custom bumpers, racks and storage are fabrication work priced by the job. None of it is in a parts catalogue.

We repair and rebuild all of it, and interior build out and conversion runs $2,500 to $50,000 or more depending on scope. What we cannot do is retroactively create the record that would have got a carrier to pay for it.

Photograph the build in daylight, wide and close, and photograph it again after every significant addition. Keep the receipts in one place, including materials for self built work, because a pile of material receipts plus dated photographs is far better than nothing and is what most self builders actually have available.

Write a plain description of the system: what was installed, by whom, when, and roughly what it cost. An installer's invoice is ideal. A one page description with photographs and receipts attached is the realistic version, and it is enough to start a conversation with an agent that ends in a rider or an endorsement.

Then call the agent, not the claims line. Coverage for a build is an underwriting conversation and it happens at policy renewal, not during a claim. Ask specifically how the build is scheduled, what basis it is valued on, and whether an appraisal is needed. Owners of vintage units, expedition builds and heavily modified coaches are the ones for whom an agreed value arrangement changes the most.

The honest answer is that it goes badly, and pretending otherwise on a page like this would be worse than useless. Reconstructing the value of a custom build after damage is much harder than proving it beforehand, and in many cases the equipment is simply not on the claim.

What still helps: any dated photographs, any receipts, any installer records, and a description specific enough that the adjuster is pricing named equipment rather than a category. A carrier that cannot pay for a system may still pay for the roof it was mounted to, the penetrations that have to be resealed, and the labour to remove and refit the equipment during the repair. Those are separable lines and they are worth asking about.

At intake we photograph and list every aftermarket system on the vehicle, damaged or not, and the list goes in the file with everything else. It does not create coverage after the fact. It gives you a documented inventory for the next policy period, and it gives the adjuster something specific to price on this one rather than a shrug.

A damaged build is repaired differently from a factory vehicle, because there are no published procedures and no parts diagram. What exists is the build itself, so the work starts with understanding how it was made: how the roof was penetrated, how the panels were mounted, how the bank was secured, what the wiring route was, and what was structural versus what was cosmetic.

That is why teardown photography matters even more on a build than on a factory coach. Nothing can be reassembled from a diagram, so the disassembly record is the reassembly instruction. On a self built van the previous builder often used methods nobody would find in a manual, and documenting them before removal is the difference between a rebuild and an improvisation.

Solar installation, twelve volt and shore power wiring, auxiliary battery and inverter systems, insulation and sound deadening, headliner and wall panels, custom storage and fabrication are all in scope here, in shop. Where a component is discontinued, we fabricate, and where a system needs to be moved to make a structural repair possible, the removal and refit is documented as its own operation so it does not vanish into a body labour line.