July 2026

The motorhome vehicle segment is growing strongly – since April 2025, over one million motorhomes have been registered in Germany. At the same time, there are significant structural differences within the registration-law term "motorhome": everything from small panel vans to large fully integrated motorhomes falls under this term. Furthermore, with the General Safety Regulation II, the EU has mandated certain driver assistance systems for the new registration of motorhomes since 7 July 2026. 

Despite these developments, a specific examination of motorhome accidents has been lacking until now – particularly from an insurance perspective. Therefore, a research database was established at the Allianz Center for Technology to systematically analyze the claims experience of motorhomes. 

The database contains 564 motor own damage claims from the 2024 claims year involving motorhomes with a permissible gross weight of up to 3.5 tons. Each accident was evaluated with regard to the accident sequence, damaged components, and repairs, among other factors – a total of 187 characteristics were recorded per accident. 

The development of the database pursues three central research questions: 

 ● How do motorhomes get involved in accidents? 

 ● What differences emerge between the various construction types? 

 ● Which driver assistance systems address the typical accidents of motorhomes? 

Key findings of the investigation: 

 ● The clear focus of the analysis is on property damage, which accounts for 97.7% of the analyzed accidents. 

 ● Parking and maneuvering accidents account for 64.3% of all accidents and are responsible for 51.6% of the total claims expenditure. 

 ● For motorhomes with sandwich construction (semi-integrated, fully integrated, and overcab motorhomes), there is a marked concentration of accidents in summer. Their share of accidents abroad is 44.0%. In contrast, panel van accidents are distributed more evenly throughout the year, with their share of accidents abroad at only 21.4%. These differences suggest different usage patterns. While sandwich-construction motorhomes are primarily used for long holiday trips, panel vans are also used as everyday vehicles. 

 ● The probability of a total loss differs significantly between construction types: 9.0% of accidents involving sandwich-construction motorhomes result in total losses, compared to 4.1% for panel vans. 

Tyre blowouts in sandwich-construction motorhomes can penetrate the floor panel and thus more easily lead to total losses. Overloading and incorrect loading – two well-known problems with motorhomes – can potentially contribute to tyre blowouts. In a measurement campaign by the German Insurers Accident Research (UDV) in 2016, 51% of motorhomes exceeded the permissible gross weight. Overloading and incorrect loading cannot be directly determined from insurance data; however, indicators can be derived: 

 ● 3.0% of all accidents involving sandwich-construction motorhomes are attributable to tyre blowouts, compared to only 0.9% of accidents for panel vans. 

 ● 10.8% of accidents are attributable to driving errors – incorrect loading affects vehicle handling and could therefore contribute to driving errors. 

Our recommendation to motorhome drivers is therefore: Regularly check tyre age, condition, and pressure, comply with the permissible gross weight, and ensure even axle load distribution. 

The investigation into the influence of driver assistance systems yielded the following results: 

 ● The autonomous emergency braking system addresses a smaller share of accidents at 6.9%; however, these are particularly cost-intensive, accounting for 11.4% of claims expenditure. This result supports the mandatory inclusion of the system under the aforementioned EU regulation. 

 ● The EU regulation only requires a detection system for reversing as a parking system. However, the analysis shows: For the claims experience of motorhomes, a laterally directed parking function is particularly relevant – it addresses 32.2% of accidents, which account for 29.8% of claims expenditure. 

Conclusion: 

The accident database provides, for the first time, an insurance-based, systematic analysis of the claims experience of motorhomes, thereby supplementing the existing understanding of motorhome accidents with an insurance perspective. It reveals relevant differences between construction types and underscores the importance of laterally directed parking assistance systems for motorhomes.