Breakdown cover

[Appollo51]

Help required to find best breakdown cover home and eu

 

[Sunnyb]

You may be sorry you asked! If you look at the thread 'First Time Broken Down Abroad' you will see some experiences on there of overseas breakdown -including ours. We have the Nationwide Flexplus Breakdown Cover which we called upon when we broke down in France at the end of August. Can't fault the recovery to the garage, taxis for us to get a hire car in France, plus a hotel for the night when the hire car office had closed before we got there(!) and then taxi and hire car at this end to get home. We did not have to put our hands in our pocket and generally the communication was good and the service very efficient. We opted for repatriation of the vehicle because they couldn't get the part before we were due home (it happened at end of holiday and we had to be back for school/work a few days later). However, if we had know the delays that were to follow then we would have taken the alternative option which was to have it repaired at the garage out there and then NW would pay for one of us (or someone else) to go back out and collect it. However, we figured that the max 3 week wait for repatriation stated in the T&Cs outweighed the aggro of having to go back out for it in terms of time off work etc. It is now over 6 weeks since we requested the repatriation and our van still isn't back in the UK! I won't bore you with the details of the delays and chasing we have had to do but basically the story/excuse is that at the end of the summer there is often a backlog of vehicles (probably mainly cars) that need to be brought back from Europe and only so many transporters that can do bigger vehicles blah blah. Suffice to say the job has now finally been allocated down the chain to a firm in the UK who are out there now picking up a couple of other vehicles further south and then ours tomorrow afternoon/Thursday.

NW sub-contract UK breakdowns to LV Britannia and French ones (possibly more of Europe) to a company called Opteven based in Lyons. Opteven do the logistics and allocate the jobs out to sub-contract transporters of whom they told me they use several. I have phoned them many times, they speak excellent English and are mostly very nice people - but not terribly effective at pushing things along (with one or two exceptions). Our job was initially put out to a UK company called Ontime Automotive (oh the irony) and they have now further subbed it out to another specialist recovery company from Beds. I have been told along the way that all the big breakdown companies are drawing on pretty much the same pool of specialist transporters when it comes to recovering large vehicles from Europe so for that reason we will probably stay with NW Flexplus despite being unhappy with the delay and lack of proactive communication once the repatriation was requested. As I said, the actual breakdown recovery to the local garage and getting us home was handled very well and the main thing is that it comes back safe and undamaged and - apart from the repair, which would be needed anyway - it won't have cost us a penny. But, if it happens to us again, we probably wouldn't go for the repatriation option. Considering the relative cost of the cover and the cost of our claim then on balance I shouldn't complain but the latter part has been pretty stressful and has resulted in us having to cancel various planned trips including at half-term.

 

[Appollo51]

Thanks for that.im actually with the same company at present but they are changing there interest rates to zero in Nov so now looking around for better options. Hope you get everything sorted

 

[Sunnyb]

Thanks for that.im actually with the same company at present but they are changing there interest rates to zero in Nov so now looking around for better options. Hope you get everything sorted

I don't use mine as my main current account and I didn't really do it for the interest, only for the insurance when my main current account which had similar benefits put its packaged insurance fee up. It was cheaper for me to open an additional current account with NW and just put the minimum amount in monthly to get the insurance package. Having said that I do move funds by S/O monthly to a NW savings account which pays 5% interest up to £2500.

 

[tuscancouple]

Having said that I do move funds by S/O monthly to a NW savings account which pays 5% interest up to £2500.

Only until 1 Nov. It stops then. We also use NW travel ins.

We had an incident on the A63 out of Bordeaux a couple of months ago. As we were on an autoroute the recovery company is predetermined so we were recovered back to their garage. Parts had to be shipped out from the UK, which only took 3 days,, however all covered by the insurance and we were on our way again, eventually.

Mick

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[Sunnyb]

We'll probably still stick with them as not bothered much about the interest and I think the insurance package is still good value. If they put the fee up though it might be time to switch back to using the one available from my main current account provider. Good to know that it actually works too - depsite finding out the hard way! - as I was quite surprised when I realised that they covered motorhomes (and up to 8.5 metres too) I think.

 

[ctc]

Worth checking what cover your vehicle already has, mine based on a sprinter has basic cover if serviced by Mercedes.