Summer travel and safety tips for new RVers

Independence Day travel is expected to approach pre-pandemic levels during the 2021 July Fourth weekend, according to AAA, with more than 47.7 million Americans planning to engage in some type of adventure.

While every type of travel is markedly more popular this year compared to last year, when most of the world was in the throes of the COVID-19 battle, road trips rule the summer months. AAA expects 43.6 million people to hit the roads, many of them in RVs.

A recent survey of America’s 180 million leisure travelers found that 31% are planning on going RVing at some point this summer, RV Industry Association President and CEO Craig Kirby said recently.

“More and more Americans are ready to travel this summer, and 56 million of them are planning to go RVing in an RV they rent, own, or borrow,” said Kirby. “Even with other forms of travel returning, the desire to use an RV to get outdoors and experience an active outdoor lifestyle is stronger than ever. RVing has been cemented as a mainstream travel option that is here to stay.”

Meanwhile, traffic accidents always swell during holidays, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. When it comes to crash fatalities, July Fourth was the deadliest holiday of the year in 2019.

Safety tips for RV newbies

The RV Industry Association says 65 million Americans plan to take an RV trip within the next year, with many of them RVing for the first time.

Erie Insurance recently shared travel and safety tips for new RVers.

“With so many people hitting the road in RVs for the first time, we want to make sure they’re prepared,” said Jon Bloom, vice president of personal auto, Erie Insurance. “I know from personal experience that an RV is a great way to enjoy the outdoors and connect with friends and family, but it’s a lot different than taking a road trip in a car. We want to help people enjoy their trip and protect the investment they’ve made in their RV.”

Bloom summarized the following notable differences between road-tripping in a car and taking to the road in an RV:

Drivability: Driving a car is second nature for people who do it all the time, but maneuvering an RV is different, especially if you’re doing it for the first time and it’s not something you do very often.
Visibility: Anyone who drives a car is familiar with blind spots, but those can seem even more pronounced for new RVers.
Maintenance: Both cars and RVs require regular maintenance like oil changes and tire rotations, but RVs have many additional features to attend to, like water, sewer and electrical lines, awnings, slide outs and seals.
Getting around and gassing up: When you’re on a car trip, you use your car for sightseeing, and you don’t think twice about hitting a drive-through for dinner or pulling into any service station to gas up. Depending on the size of your RV, however, those things may not be practical.
Insurance: Whether for a car or an RV, you’ll need liability insurance, which covers injuries to others or damage to others’ property if you are responsible for an accident, and you will also likely want comprehensive and collision insurance to cover your own vehicle.

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Commercial P&C Insurance

Commercial Office Space Set for a Strong Comeback

The sustained increase in demand for office space across the nation since late 2022 suggests that the market has moved past its lowest point, according to insights from the real estate technology platform, VTS. Demand for office space began to rise in late 2022 and continued into early 2023. Since then, the office market has experienced a period of stability and growth, supported by favorable economic factors, indicating a market rebound. This conclusion is drawn from the VTS Office Demand Index (VODI), which tracks unique new tenant tour requests for office properties in key U.S. markets. The VODI serves as an early indicator of future office leasing activity. According to the index, demand for office space has grown consistently over the past 12 months, closing the second quarter with a 17% year-over-year increase and a 34% rise from the VODI’s lowest point in December 2022. A significant shift in office-based employment patterns further supports the belief that demand for office space has stabilized. After reaching its peak in August 2022, office-based employment declined by 3.9% in early 2024. However, this trend has since stabilized, and employment growth has remained steady. Additionally, a recent decrease in work-from-home rates has fueled the renewed demand for office space. “They say you can only recognize a market bottom after it has passed, and the office space market is no exception. Following what we now see as the bottom, the national demand has gradually increased, though it remains susceptible to economic challenges,” said Nick Romito, CEO of VTS. “However, the growth observed in VODI over the past 18 months, coupled with positive trends in the office-using workforce, suggests that the market has reset, and the worst is behind us.” It’s important to note that this national trend does not impact all local markets equally. Cities like Los Angeles and New York City have seen healthy growth in office space demand, while markets such as San Francisco and Washington, D.C., have experienced prolonged stagnation. In Los Angeles, office space demand surged in the second quarter, briefly surpassing pre-COVID levels, driven by an increase in the average size of office spaces sought by tenants. New York City followed a similar overall pattern, though with some softness in the second quarter. Conversely, San Francisco’s demand for office space remains unpredictable, largely due to its tech-focused workforce, which continues to favor remote work more than other industries. “Markets heavily dependent on the tech sector, like San Francisco and Seattle, are on a markedly different post-COVID recovery path compared to more diversified markets like Los Angeles and New York City. It may take some time before we see office demand in San Francisco and Seattle return to pre-COVID levels,” added Ryan Masiello, Chief Strategy Officer at VTS.

Cyber Liability

Global IT Outage Puts Business Interruption Insurance in the Spotlight

In July, a global IT outage had a significant impact on business interruption insurance policies, overshadowing the effects on cyber insurance coverages. “This incident wasn’t a result of a malicious attack, which is why typical cyber insurance policies may not have been activated,” explained Peter McMurtrie, a partner in West Monroe’s insurance sector, in an interview with PropertyCasualty360.com. “Where coverage was applicable, factors like deductible amounts, waiting periods, and coverage limits played a critical role in determining the extent of exposure,” McMurtrie noted. “Standard policies for small businesses were less likely to offer coverage, while more complex policies for mid-sized companies and Fortune 500 corporations may have included broader triggers for non-malicious outages caused by third-party software issues.” The outage was triggered by a software update on July 19, 2024, by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which affected organizations worldwide using Microsoft Windows. This interruption had far-reaching consequences, including disrupting hospital systems, media outlets, financial institutions, delaying thousands of flights, and halting daily business operations. McMurtrie emphasized that while the initial impact of the outage was similar for both large and small businesses, the ability to recover operations and whether insurance covered the loss of business income varied. “Larger companies are more likely to have advanced disaster recovery plans that ensure service redundancy following unexpected outages,” he added. “Their insurance programs also tend to cover a wider range of incidents.” According to Microsoft, the CrowdStrike update error affected over 8.5 million Windows devices globally. The incident highlighted the interconnected nature of our global ecosystem, including cloud providers, software platforms, security services, and their clients. “It’s a stark reminder of the importance of prioritizing safe deployment and disaster recovery across the tech industry,” the company said in a blog post. McMurtrie pointed out that the outage’s widespread impact was largely due to its effect on organizations that are critical to societal infrastructure—sectors like agriculture, airlines, banking, energy, government, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail. “Insurance companies base their risk appetite on their ability to understand and price risks appropriately. This becomes increasingly challenging with emerging threats,” he said. “However, I anticipate that insurers will respond by clarifying policy language, refining risk selection criteria, and possibly developing new products specifically designed for this evolving exposure.”

Summer travel and safety tips for new RVers