European Recovery Insurance

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kettlesimon
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European Recovery Insurance

Post by kettlesimon »

I seem to recall on this forum someone posting about competitive breakdown cover covering European travel (and UK), from a German company at a fraction of the usual RAC/AA/Green Flag offerings available here in the UK. Can anyone point me in the right direction please.
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Re: European Recovery Insurance

Post by JohnD »

Maybe what you have in mind is ADAC. Some of my caravanning forum friends use it. See http://www.adac.de/mitgliedschaft/adac_ ... efault.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: European Recovery Insurance

Post by Peter.N. »

When I applied to the AA for cover they said they would only pay for recovery up to the value of the car, so as most cars I drive are not valued at more then £600-700 it seemed a waste of money - unless there is another firm that doesn't apply that principle?

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Re: European Recovery Insurance

Post by jgra1 »

I am with AXA for a yearly premium of ..and I just can't remember ..50 to 80.. Doesn't seem to bad..

John

Try confused.com I tjink..

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Re: European Recovery Insurance

Post by rabenson »

flux rescue can be bought from adrian flux as a standalone for around £70 or i think £50 if you get it with your insurance. They are very good and give full uk and european rescue and breakdown cover
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Re: European Recovery Insurance

Post by Old-Guy »

Peter.N. wrote:When I applied to the AA for cover they said they would only pay for recovery up to the value of the car, so as most cars I drive are not valued at more then £600-700 it seemed a waste of money - unless there is another firm that doesn't apply that principle?

Peter
This is true as most "European Recovery" cover is in fact an insurance policy sold by the AA, RAC or whoever and all administered by a call centre in Lyons. As far as I can work out, with the exception of ADAC in Germany, in the Continent there are no equivalents of AA or RAC; all recovery is done by contractors either designated by Autoroute operators or contracted on an case-by-case basis by insurance companies.
We had bitter experience of this a year ago. Our Xantia was valued at a not very generous £700 - thus setting the limit for the total payout: recovery from the toll Autoroute (by the local recovery firm authorised by the Gendarmerie); Saturday night accommodation (kindly arranged by the local recovery boss), taxi to the 'nearest' Hertz agent (€215!) open on a Sunday and hire car to Roscoff. We had to pay for the second night's accommodation and a hire car to get home in the UK. The car was finally repatriated some 7 weeks later after a great deal of acrimonious argument.

If the insurance broker (AA, RAC, or whoever) boasts of their dedicated control centre in Lyons, avoid like the plague - on the afternoon of Saturday 31/5/2013, there were just 3 girls manning the 'phones for all companies in the Lyons control centre. From about 6pm, I was holding in a queue for over an hour on my mobile (until its battery finally went flat) waiting for someone to pick up and hopefully then arrange taxi and overnight accommodation. "We were very busy that day." Totally predictable - it being the week-end at the end of the UK summer half-term! We were left stranded in a village whose sole 'facilities' were a Renault Dealership (the recovery company) and a bakery. No taxi and not even a bar! Thierry Bonnet, the owner of the Renault Dealers, arranged accommodation for us with a customer who runs an up-market B&B, and then very kindly took us in his own car the several miles to it. Our hosts, Odile & Thierry seeing that we were exhausted, invited us to share their 'simple' dinner (omlette with salad, all home produced, local cheese, wine, coffee) at their kitchen table and made 'phone calls for us. It wasn't until Sunday lunchtime that a taxi eventually arrived to take us (an hours trip in the wrong direction) to the Hertz agency who stayed open until we got there.

Nothing but praise for all the people who went out of their way to help us in France and the UK. Brittany Ferries were brilliant, allowed us to reschedule our return journey (twice!) at no extra charge and even gave us a £100(ish) refund on the difference between car + occupants and 2 foot passengers. Accustomed to helping stranded motorists, their well-oiled machine swung into action - wheeled cage for us to empty the hire car into, wrapped it all in industrial cling-film, "leave at check-in, we'll make sure it's secure until we return it to you outside the Plymouth terminal. You go and have some lunch." Enterprise rang me back when we were several miles off Roscoff, promised a suitable car (turned out to be an almost new C-Max). When we had cleared the ferry terminal, within 5 minutes of being called to say we were outside the terminal, the duty manager appeared with the car and within another 15 minutes the formalities were completed, the car was loaded and we were on our way.

Important advice: If the car can be safely towed a short distance, it is a lot less expensive to make your own arrangements to get it 'recovered' to the parking area of the ferry port, Brittany Ferries will tow it on board and off at the other end (by fork-lift truck!) from where you can get the AA, RAC, or whoever, to recover it home. The way the Lyons' control centre does it, repatriation of a car costs in the region of £1,100 (depending how far it has to be transported in total), is done as the back-load on transporters delivering new cars from the UK to Europe, and takes up to 2 months. Insurance doesn't cover a hire car in the UK until yours is returned.
Last edited by Old-Guy on 05 Jun 2014, 16:37, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: European Recovery Insurance

Post by jgra1 »

Good post old guy.. I agree .. If in a car / bike with little value and you have a major mechanical incident going alone can often be the only way..
Could even pay to leave car there, come back with a trailer some other time..
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