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We’re off on a three week trip around Europe in a week or so and I need to sort out some breakdown cover. Having no real reason to go with any company over another I figure I might as well ask here to see if anyone has any recommendations.
If it makes any difference we’ll be heading as far south as Italy and will be making quite a few stops while we’re out. So good provision for a replacement car if our breaks down would be appreciated, as would decent cover for getting ours back home if need be.
I probably need to renew our normal breakdown cover soon so potentially ok with an annual policy rather than a single trip one if that makes more sense.
If you bank with Nationwide, maybe the Flexplus packaged account could tick a lot boxes? UK & European breakdown cover, travel insurance, other stuff, not too pricey.
we use autoaid/autonational rather than the big boys. a fair bit cheaper but i havent had to use them yet to test them out.
they also do euro cover https://www.autoaidbreakdown.co.uk/euro-rescue-european-breakdown-cover/
Having broken down twice when abroad, once with the AA the other with a cheap provider, I'd say this is the one time where the AA or RAC are the better option. The AA breakdown got me a hire car, managed the repair, got me back to the repaired car (broke down near Dijon on the way to Chatel) and paid me a bit of money for the lost day or so of riding from having to get my car back. The other breakdown was an absolute nightmare as I had to make my own arrangements and then claim the money back afterwards. Used the AA or RAC on every subsequent trip, never broke down as sod's law dictates.
Have a look at ADAC, been a few years since I used them but they were well recommended historically.
ADAC were superb. Thanks to brex$hit however that train has sailed and they withdrew cover for Brits a few years ago.
AA provide VWs cover in Europe for them. I was unfortunate enough to have to use this a couple of years ago when our van ate its EGR cooler on the way to Spain. Took them 6 weeks to repatriate it. The car trailer we were towing had its arse dragged all the way back to Newcastle 3cm from the road as the hitch on the tow truck was too high. They also plugged the 12v electrics into the 24v truck and blew all the LED lighting units. Cost £5400 to fix and in excess hire charges.
Nationwide £13 a month.
Open a joint account and you and your partner are both covered. Bonus is it also includes worldwide travel insurance including winter sports, but not mountain biking. However you can pay an extra £40 to upgrade the cover to include MTB. I'm not sure how comprehensive the MTB cover is though?
I've got breakdown cover with a NatWest bank account, but when I checked before a recent trip, it is UK only, not Europe. I shopped around a bit, but ended up buying a short policy to cover a ten day trip with the AA. It was about £50 and took minutes to sort online. Having a good read of the small print, it seemed to provide pretty comprehensive cover and did give me peace of mind.
AA were absolutely super on the two (!) occasions I had to use them for European breakdowns of a 30 yo campervan.
Europe Plus I’ve not had to claim, but when I had a query recently the phone was answered promptly by a real person who knew what they were talking about.
We bought RAC last month as it was one of the few I could find that would repatriate the car in the event of theft damage / crash. A lot dearer than the basic ones, but...
Car Insurance though was with the company I insured with already, includes Europe automatically.