RAC, AA or another?

Andyboy

2 adults with home start and onward travel

£140 RAC
£155 AA
£157 Tesco vouchers (£39 worth vouchers)

These are my options unless any of you good people out there can help me otherwise. My wife is not keen on the pay first claim later services but i would like your thoughts please on any and i will see if i can compile a little round up of all the ideas at the end which could help anyone else in the same position

The things a 5 month old baby makes you think about :rolleyes:

Thanks in anticipation of a great response from the great MSE crowd. Lets keep up the good work for everyone :T and and confront the "enemy" as martin calls them!

John_3:16

Try http://www.quotelinedirect.co.uk/breakdown/

£59 with europe

DavidHM

Tesco with vouchers is going to be unbeatable.

However if you have other uses for the vouchers, AutoNational Rescue will cover two cars (not users) for £99, or one car for £66 covering recovery, home start, onward travel and accommodation. I've used them and found their response times to be excellent, too.

Andyboy

DavidHM,

Isn't the £66 only if you have 25% discount already or do all new subscribers get thie as standard?

DavidHM

You get the 25% if you haven't claimed or broken down within a certain period of time - 12 months I think - and as long as you declare that truthfully they'll accept your word.

DealDrivers_company_representative

Like everything in life, size does matter! Don't just go for the cheapest deal, you need to assess their capabilities too. If you have young kids with you, breaking down can be extremely stressful, pretty darned quickly (about 40 seconds we reckon in this office!).

Roadside cover sells as folk want to feel safe and get help quickly - some smaller operators won't always achieve that. They may have scarce coverage, or use a multitude of subcontractors to provide their service, meaning possible logistical and response time problems.

When you need them - how fast can they be there, on average, and who will they send? How will the van be branded so you recognise it as the authorised engineer?

What courses of action or recompense are open to you if they fail to meet their promised response time? How many mobile operatives do they have in the parts of the country you do the most travelling in? etc.

At night and/or alone, I'd rather have paid a decent amount to have a chance of getting help quickly by a uniformed bloke in a recognised van - not a subcontractor sent by a cheapo' recovery company turning up in his own van. How do I tell him apart from any old opportunist who stops to offer their services? I'm sure there's loads of good ones, but as a female broken down at night, or with children, I wouldn't want to hear that help was about 40 miles away and 'on another job at the moment'!

There are, I'm sure, stories of the AA and RAC occasionally not doing a great job, like any company things can go wrong sometimes as they are all dependent on human beings to provide the service on the ground, but for each complaint there's many more grateful and happy customers who all get fringe benefits from their memberships too.

jyonda

Greenflag are a national service, very reasonabley priced and if you go through Quidco.com you can get 20 quid back too. They use a network of independant firms but have always come within 45mins - 1 hr and give priority to females at night/kids. They cover the car and not the person so if you are a one car family it works out cheaper.

mich_city

Hi all..

I was looking at the RAC cover on the Tesco clubcard deals page.. I can't get my head round it as it when comparing with the RAC site they describe their cover as 'Solutions 1,2,3' etc.. Whilst on the deals page its 'Roadside - At Home' or 'Roadside - Recovery' etc.. The prices aren't similar either so hard to compare this way.

I was looking to get cover for both home and roadside away from home which would be Solutions 2 or 3 on RAC.. But cant see an option with the Tesco deals that offers both of these..

Is it just me, or am I looking at the wrong options?

Thanks!

bloaty

Hi

We use a company called Auto Aid via Boncaster Insurance Services in Essex and we have been with them for well in excess of 8 years.

Costs £32 p.a. for single or family cover - husband and wife with 2 cars.

This covers the car you are driving (don't ask for any registrations) for home start to a max of £40, recovery or onward travel etc (including accommodation where necessary although never had to use this element).

You can call any breakdown firm out or use their 24 hour helpline and they will arrange this for you, pay the bill, send them your invoice and they reimburse you in full.

We broke down just before Christmas at the on site car park in Mnachester airport, the rear brakes had locked on our car. Phoned the 24 hour helpline -as we didn't have a clue who to contact - at 7 pm, local firm rang us straight back to say they would be with us within the hour. 7.30 pm they arrived, it was pouring down with rain, by 8 pm they had sorted out the problem and we were on our way home. (Total bill £49.35)

Paid by CC and we were given a job schedule on the spot marked paid. Phoned Autoaid for a claim form but due to Christmas mail didn't get this until after Boxing Day. Received our cheque in full immediately after the New Year even though we hadn't received the official bill which arrived after being reimbursed.

For the price this is excellent cover. When we had an older vehicle we invariably made at least 1 claim a year for minor problems. Paid out each time no problems, which meant for quite a few years we were getting cover for free as we were receiving our premium back in full and when we first joined them the cover was only around £15 p.a. for both of us and 2 cars.

My son is just about to take his own cover with them following the end of his free cover with his previous insurer.

All in all we have saved a fortune in Breakdown cover over these years without the risks.

PM me if you need any more info.
:j

bloaty

Just did a search on google for Auto aid and it would seem that Martin has done a previous article on breakdown and Auto Aid were the 'overall winner'

Don't take my word for it see his weekly post:

The Overall Winner.

Top is AutoAid, a UK-only pay and claim service. This is a little known subsidiary of large insurer Boncaster, which also runs the AutoNational breakdown recovery service.

The price is stunning. For £32 a year, it insures the person not the car, meaning vehicle age, mileage and reliability are irrelevant, plus caravans & trailers are included. It also includes free cover for a spouse (must be married not just cohabiting) or in a civil partnership with a certificate.



While most budget policies only fix the car at the roadside or tow it to a garage, AutoAid provides transport for up to 6 people to the required destination, plus home start cover up to a limit of £45. However, like most policies, it only pays for labour and recovery, not parts.


Its stated average call out time is 40 minutes (roughly on a par with others) and it promises to pay back the cash you lay out within 14 days. AutoAid was my recommendation last year too and many MoneySavers who took it out have reported good feedback.

Andyboy

mich_city wrote:

Hi all..

I was looking at the RAC cover on the Tesco clubcard deals page.. I can't get my head round

Had the same problem. if you go to the motoring options from Clubcard deals on the left of the screen and follow the links you might find it a bit more useful as mor options come up.

i only found this out by phoning them and querying it!

:j