Wildly differing car breakdown prices...

Famau

I'm wondering if others have noticed the major differences in car breakdown cover for exactly the same policies with the same companies? I have just taken out a year's cover with Britannia rescue via moneysupermarket.com. The cost was £23 for full nationwide recovery with homestart, hire car etc. The only missing item was european cover which I didn't need. Buying elsewhere was over £100.

I appreciate that companies want the business, and need to attract someone looking via a comparison site who may be a little more savvy than others who auto-renew. But this is really a significant difference.

And yes - I have read the small print and the cover is identical. Curious…..!

ritz55

I found the same with Britannia Rescue as well. The renewal price was also high so cancelled and repurchased via the comparison site.

ButterCheese

AA and RAC have traditionally been the most expensive, as they have their own fleet of trained fitters who can sometimes do work at the roadside. The likes of StartRescue, who I'm with, are merely a recovery service who use their own vans or more commonly sub contract out a recovery vehicle to bring you home. That's why I paid £40 for the year, and AA would have been £140.

I think sometimes, the name (e.g AA) is so old and often associated with breakdowns that people just go with them because they know the name. If you're taken onward to your destination, or recovered home to your local garage, then it doesn't really matter what colour the truck is.

Saying that, I've had AA attempt a (intermittent) fault repair at the roadside and it failed. I was then handed over to a local recovery truck who actually told me to drive to the nearest town to find a garage! Not the premium service I was expecting. Start Rescue (others are available) have always been very good, just once we had to wait 2 hours as they were changing shifts

Mildly_Miffed

Ignoring the providers with own fleets, you're buying an insurance policy. No more, no less. The actual recovery is done by the same network of national contractors.

From your insurance premium, the provider pays…
Marketing costs
Office costs
Staff costs
Tax
…keeps a profit…
Oh, yes, and claims…

Now, if one provider looks suspiciously cheap, you need to ask yourself how they're making a profit after paying claims, given the rest is going to be similar cost to all the others. The simple answer would be they pay as little for as few claims as possible.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6676829/wildly-differing-car-breakdown-prices

Have you actually compared the policy wordings?

Havent looked explicitly for Britannia but with other prviders the aggregator policy is a cut down version with a limit to the number of call outs, an excess per call out and/or you often cant add on higher tier coverages like onwards travel or relay

People buying via aggregators care only about price so many providers make a bare bones version to get the price down. People buying directly from a brand often are already favouring that brand so not as price sensitive and often want a better quality product

Famau

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82076236#Comment_82076236

Well, I had a look, and the £23 Britannia Rescue offering appears to be the full-fat version - no obvious omissions or caveats that I could spot. The car is under 2 years old, and I did wonder if they are competing by modelling failure rates which - hopefully - are limited for this car (though pothole punctures are always a risk of course). As Mildly-miffed points out, it is effectively an insurance policy.

I'll have a closer look just to be sure that I'm not missing something !

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82076465#Comment_82076465

Legally something is or isnt an insurance policy, its a hard line with significant implications on which side of the fence it lands both for you and them. If its not insurance they can sail as close to the line as they want without you having the right to go to the Ombudsman with a complaint etc.

A quick bot review of the two points to the comparison site wording referring to an excess which isnt mentioned in the direct policywording. The Direct covers up to two vehicles whereas the comparison site is only 1 vehicle. The direct policy can commence next day whereas the aggregator version has a 24 hour requirement

paul_c123

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82076538#Comment_82076538

Can something be not an insurance policy but have Insurance Premium Tax applied to it?

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82076675#Comment_82076675

IPT is unique to insurance, if its not insurance then it would have VAT. Insurance is Exempt from VAT hence insurers can recover little to no VAT it pays (exempt is very different to 0% rated)

The Britannia Direct policies are insurance, hence their complaints section states you can go to the FOS (didnt look at the aggregators ones)

Famau

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82076538#Comment_82076538

Yes, policy via the comparison site was just one car, which suited. And set to start in 2 weeks' time when current cover ends. Strangely, two excess options were quoted - one £40 and one zero - for the same price. Obviously, I opted for the zero one! So the comparison offer was fine for us I think. I noticed significantly higher prices via other comparison sites too for ostensibly the same product. It's all rather odd though isn't it…

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82076761#Comment_82076761

Breakdown doesnt have regulations around renewal pricing so they can be more strategic. Plus mass market consumer insurance is priced on statistical analysis of their experience and so some pricing may not sound "logical" at first glance if its supported by millions of customers data the data wins.