Roadside assistance has become essential for all drivers. You can’t afford to pay close to hundred pounds for each breakdown. Now, you can find many insurance providers and other companies offering a variety of breakdown covers. You have to choose the one that best suits you.
Understanding what is covered by your breakdown cover is important. Some policies cover only the driver while other policies cover only the vehicle. Many companies provide you an option to choose the type of cover you need. As breakdown cover provided by almost all companies have similar benefits, the type of cover and the company you choose determine your monthly bills. You can choose a cover that requires you to pay you less than 30 pounds a month if you know what you want.
Choosing a cover depends on driving pattern. If you and other members in your household share the same car, you can consider buying cover for the car. This way, you don’t have to pay for the roadside assistance irrespective of who drives the car. However, this type of cover may increase your premium if your car is old. If you drive several cars belonging to different persons, then you must buy cover for you. This way, you don’t have to spend money out of your pocket if a car breaks down while you drive.
Overseas breakdown cover is also very popular. This cover covers you even when you are abroad. Imagine the trauma you have to face when your car breaks down in a foreign country. Anticipating every possible problem is not possible, but it is wise to get cover for probable problems.
The business practices and terminology between breakdown cover organisations and small operations differ messily between the USA and Great Britain. When ever you mention the term breakdown cover in the States you will only find a hand ful of individuals who will elate it to the service we know in the UK.
As soon as you start referring to Roadside Assistance however then, the communication starts becoming clearer that is until you then clarify towing. Many companies like to call them themselves a towing operation. One such company is called Adlers Towing which does not just stop at cars. In fact when you see the towing equipment they have, you can see they can pretty much pick up everything, from commercial units through to domestic vehicles.
This seems typical of a family owned towing business, where relying on one vehicle type may not generate enough business. Of course the cars they drive in America are far bigger than here in the UK and the roads are wider also to accommodate huge recovery trucks like these. To give you a flavour we have incorporated the Aldler Towing video from Yellow Pages.
It is usual for news cars to be provided with some sort of roadside assistance for the first year at least. In this instance the RAC has continued its relationship with Proton the major manufacturer of cars. The deal lasts another 3 years that could help 7000 drivers when they buy a new car, should any faults occur whilst out driving.
Of course it is very unlikely that a new car would suffer any breakdown as such, but bearing in mind that many call outs tend to be for small stuff such as a flat tyre or keys locked in the car, having a RAC breakdown cover policy at hand could be very handy in times of need.
This RAC press release should give all Proton drivers piece of mind when buying a new car. In a climate where new car sales are trying to recoup the previous bad year, anything that can help give credibility and confidence to the new car sale must be of benefit to all concerned. Here is the RAC Proton press release direct from the RAC site.
We see this from time to time, where major insurance companies offer free breakdown cover in order to encourage you to take our their car insurance. In this instance it is Churchill the nodding dog that is saying yes to free breakdown cover. The offer is on to the 31st August 2009 according to the Churchill website and major television campaign. But before you start picking up the phone, you may want to do a little research first to ensure this car insurance freebie is actually right for you.
The first thing to know is that Churchill is owned by RBS bank and so is Green Flag breakdown cover, so you know your motoring service will be covered by them. So one of things you may consider to do, is to visit the Green Flag website and establish what you will be covered for should you breakdown. This is important, as even though you will only get the basic cover free of charge this may not suit your motoring or you families motoring needs, so free may really mean discount.
The next thing to consider is that Green Flag’s basic cover at the moment is only from £20 a year, so if you have been quoted an insurance quote £20 cheaper, you may find it is better to go elsewhere for your insurance and buy Green Flag breakdown cover as a separate policy.
The final thing is timing your car insurance and breakdown cover policies. A lot of people buy these separate, so often the renewal times are different. Why not check to see if the cover has to be immediate or can be postponed until your existing policy runs out, it may save you a bit more money for now.
There is much advice around for what to do when you breakdown. But the challenge is that many do not read or watch the advice until they do breakdown and then it is too late. Consumer choices have produced a small video with their own opinions of what to do to, in the vain that many searching the internet will find their video.
Basic stuff that we may not think off is mentioned here. For example get out of the passenger side when on a busy road such as a motorway. Wearing something reflective if possible, but of course get the car off the road if possible. It also cover the fact that motorway breakdown services will be expensive if you do not have breakdown cover and not to forget you can still ring the national breakdown cover organization and they will come out, but will charge you something like 60 to 90 pounds to take your car off the motorway. When you compare this price with an annual policy which can start less than 30 pounds from any of the 3 main UK organisations such as the RAC, AA or Green Flag, you can see what the risk is, especially driving an older car.
We know about these Green, Orange and Yellow breakdown cover vans that seem to be parked in lay-bys up and down the country. We know about the adverts on TV that seems to offer breakdown cover, cheaper than one new from tyre and we also know that some of these emergency providers were around when granddad was a lad. But often what we don’t know is what goes on behind the scenes or why they can off breakdown cover, cheaper than they did 25 years ago, certainly for roadside assistance policies.
This is what breakdown cover today is all about. Adding news of what goes on with these national companies that keep us going, even if we have locked ourselves out of the car. It won’t be a daily thing, there just isn’t enough to talk about, but when there is something to say, hopefully we find to time to tell you about it. Many breakdown cover providers are owned by international insurance companies, so economies of scale now come into play, but we will also explore the difference of low prices, against the old fashioned motoring club that fell out favour in the eighties.
So for now we look forward to seeing you now and again, reading about what is going on in the breakdown cover world.