Just received the Renewal Notice from a well known Insurance Co for Breakdown cover on 2 cars (Recovery plus inc Homestart) - Incl 3 years No Call Out Discount of 15% = £115.50 premium. I have been with them for 20+ years - always with 1 car as often the newer car was covered under New Car Warranty - I have only broken down once in all that time.
So I checked the website of its sister company - same owners but flies a different flag - - Recovery Plus inc Homestart i.e. same level of cover the Premium is just under £93.
I then thought of trying my Car Insurance Co to extend the cover to include Breakdown Cover - after pressing 7/8 buttons I was connected to a call centre in Asia........ and matters went downhill very fast.
Even if their quote had been £50 they would not have got the business and I will seriously re-consider my car insurance renewal. Asking for Breakdown Cover quote was painful - what would it be like trying to claim on Car Insurance when the telephone lines are poor and the understanding of English in the call centre is limited.
To be fair the young man's English greatly exceeds my abilities at French but it does not instill confidence in me as a policyholder if I wanted to make a claim after an accident.
Breakdown Cover - I will still keep looking.
|
|
Similar experience to yourself; RAC Renewal £113, Joint cover with breakdown, and homestart. the same cover (option 200)but from AA online deal with continuos payment - £89. Calle dthe RAC straight through to India, asked if they would price match the AA, they would, so I asked if I could add recovery, price quoted from RAC £151, AA online price (option 300) £124, I again asked if they would price match the AA, again they would, "but I will just get you a price". Odd I've just told you what the AA price is. Anyway couple of seconds and the sales person came back and said "Home Start, recovery and breakdown - £121" £3 cheaper that the price I had asked them to beat:-)) Brilliant! And companies think its cost effective to ship jobs abroad???
|
|
|
Update - tried my current Breakdown Cover on the web - £116.50 with no NO CALL OUT DISCOUNT - as against original £115.50 that included 15% NO CALL OUT DISCOUNT!
I rest my case that Insurance Comapnies screw customers on renbewal whilst attracting new customers with better deals.
Nationwide Building Society Advert - the Clearing Banks have deals for New Customers Only
|
|
It is the financial services industy in general, only interested in customer aquisition, they make money if we all move around, arrangement fees, survey fees etc etc.
|
|
|
FB - try MoreThan on the web - i use them as they seem to me to be best value for money compared with the others for the range of services I want
--
Go on, get out of the car...
www.mikes-walks.co.uk
|
This link might be useful
www.moneysupermarket.com/roadsiderescue/
|
If you can live without homestart and shop at Tesco, take a look at tinyurl.com/mtqgd .
V
|
Note that it's just down the page.
V
|
|
|
|
So true - loyalty doesn't count any more.When my car insurance renewal came up (with MoreThan)it was £120 cheaper to "renew" by going on-line to MoreThan as new business. Wish they weren't the cheapest (for me) so I could vote with my feet!
|
Wrote and complained to the Breakdown Company and got a nice reply stating that my Recovery+ Policy I had differed from their Recovery+ Policy on the web!
Having a name to speak to I gave them a ring. They said they could not budge on the £115.50 (inc 15% no call out discount) - web policy £116.50.
In the end I was offered £101.85 - £14 approximately but better in my pocket than my Bank's Insurance Company. If you do not ask you do not get.
|
See
www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?new...6,
also, consider www.lloydstsb.com/current_accounts/added_value_acc...p
Probably not worth the hassle of moving your account if you're not already a customer though.
|
By going through the Nowich union website car breakdown I was able to get RAC breakdown cover(Norwich union uses RAC for their breakdown cover) for Rescue,recovery,home assistance and onward travel for £75.
At the same time if you go through the RAC website for the same cover it was a whopping £130.
Try this, Im sure it still works!
|
|
Autoaid is good see moneysavingexpert threads, there is also a co that includes european cover for about £50pa in there somewhere which is excellent.
|
|
|
|
The new premium @ £102 is Recovery Plus for 2 cars - 5 yr old and 7.5 year old covering 15,000 & 7000 miles respectively - so I am more than happy that I have got a good deal - £50 each in round figures
|
|
|
"Norwich union uses RAC for their breakdown cover"
Not strictly true. NU have their own branded breakdown product called Norwich Union Rescue - cloned on the RAC model - but a separate product (although boith under the Aviva ownership....).
What happens is: the first default option if you have NU Rescue is for a NU Rescue van to come out in NU colours, if there are no NU vans available it automatically trips on an RAC patrol. Both products run side by side on the same despatch system and with the same call takers.
The location system is exactly the same also.
For breakdowns where a truck is needed for recovery, then the RAC contractor is used, as would happen if you have an accident and have insurance with NU.
jdc
|
Hi
How do you know this? I've received a renewal notice from the RAC for all options + European cover for about £230 - ouch!
Looks as though NU Rescue will be substantially cheaper. Wonder if I should just go with that instead. Have also seen 'More Than' breakdown cover - inclding European cover for about £75. Wonder if I should just go with them instead but I don't know who their breakdown cover is with - anybody know?
|
As a slight aside, if ever I got a call centre agent that I had difficulty understanding I would ask to be transferred to another agent. I was advised to do this by the employee who handled the opening transaction of a building society telephone account that I've got.
--
L\'escargot.
|
|
|
morethan in the UK use local garages - in europe, I don't know - perhaps you could ask them ?
--
Go on, get out of the car...
www.mikes-walks.co.uk
|
Just renewed my insurance ( broker= screentrade).
Slight reduction in premium (7 ys ncb) with the same insurer, and a special on-renewal deal with green flag - approx £100 including European cover - which is essential for me.
|
|
"How do you know this?"
because I work for the RAC in this very department .....!
NU Rescue offer a fairly simple and straightforward product without the myriad of options that a standard RAC product sometimes has. I think the RAC are ready to roll out a streamlined product line for this very reason - customer confusion - but as far as the timing goes I can't say.
As I said, NUR is more or less the same as RAC cover - if it is cheaper it does not necessarily mean you are getting any less of a product but like with all these things - CHECK THE SMALL PRINT for any exclusions. The number of people who ring us without having the correct level of cover is staggering.
I had a call from a guy practically hanging upside down in his car after an accident (how he had the prescence of mind to call in that state I dont know...) only for me to discover he was only TPFT so accident recovery wasnt included - in the circumstances I allowed a recovery to take place but technically he wasnt covered even though he thought he had full accident recovery on his policy.
My advice is to READ your insurance/breakdown policy and not assume anything.
jdc
|
www.quotelinedirect.com/
Phone and web broker Quotelinedirect has an exclusive deal with Europ Assistance for a £59 annual ‘AutoService’ policy covering any individual vehicle (less than 20 years old) for a year.
This includes home-start, and onward travel for passengers plus up to 90 days a year cover in Europe. However, those not going to Europe regularly should stick with a UK-only policy and take out separate cover if needed for a single trip.
I checked and it includes recovery to the UK!
|
I've just had my renewal note through from Green Flag for Rescue cover.
£56.70, up from £50.40 last year and £43.05 the year before. And that includes 2 years No Callout Discount. (Actually, I've never called a breakdown company to rescue me).
Quick calculation showed an increase of over 30% in just two years - well above the rate of inflation. It's not worth quibbling about a few pounds, of course, but I thought it was rather a big increase.
Anyone know if AA & RAC are hiking their prices in a similar way?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
