European breakdown assistance

zagmund

I'm trying to organise breakdown assistance for an upcoming trip through France and Spain. It's been a while since I've had breakdown cover - the last time was for my campervan and it was provided through the vehicle insurance, so I'm trying to work out what the options are on the car side.

I will be driving by myself and meeting the rest of the family down the south of France so I'm a little nervous of the car breaking down somewhere en-route and me having no easy way of getting the car fixed/moved/brought to where the rest of the gang are. I'm getting it serviced before I head off but I would still like to have breakdown cover as well.

I see that AA & Aviva provide cover, but there may well be other ones that I haven't come across yet.

Can anyone recommend one product over the other ? Car is an 03 Zafira, trip is just over 2 weeks in France and Spain.

Thanks,

z

mikedragon32

You'll get better repsonses in the Motoring forum, I reckon.

@Motors mods: If you disagree, bounce it back to Travel.

Anan1

A friend of mine was talking about this recently - from memory, he was being charged well over €200 for a couple of weeks.

CiniO

You won't get it for good price in Ireland.

Paying 200 euros doesn't really make sense in my opinion.
As whatever happens, they won't cover the cost of fixing your car.
Breakdown assistance usually covers some basic fixing stuff on the spot, or towing to the garage. Alternative transport, or a few night in the hotel in case you need to wait for your car.

Even if something happens and you would have to pay for all above yourself, considering you are going yourself you wouldn't pay much more that few hundred quid anyway so what the point in paying 200 for insurance.


The only reasonable option seems to be getting breakdown cover from the continent. Maybe some French or Spanish insurance companies. You might try German ADAC as well. They seem to be way cheaper than Irish insurers.

Last time I was travelling over the continent I got a cover from one of the Polish companies for 2 months. Cost - 10 euros.

It covered pretty much the same as AA here for 150 quid.

bbam

We go to France every year and like the comfort of cover...

http://www.breakdowncover.ie/

Their 5* Ireland/EU cover is €79 and is good value...

zagmund

I'm probably going to go for the breakdowncover.ie option. I've been trying to dig up some others for the last while, but it looks like the options are
1) AA - about €180
2) Aviva - about €200
3) breakdowncover.ie - about €90

I tried talking to Allianz who provide IE/UK breakdown cover for the car with our motor policy, but they have no facility to extend it to European cover for a charge, which is a bit of a drag.

I've tried to contact the campervan people who provided European breakdown assist as part of the policy to see if they also provide it for cars.

z

zagmund

I had a look at the ADAC site, but couldn't read it since it was in German. Unless I'm missing something they are most likely to only provide cover in terms of getting it back to Germany and not Ireland (where I need it).

Some of the other policies seem very limited also - they talked of overnight cover up to a price of €35 per person which won't go too far, and a maximum payout of €750, which for a charge of €200 seems pretty poor odds.

z

CiniO wrote: »

You won't get it for good price in Ireland.

Paying 200 euros doesn't really make sense in my opinion.
As whatever happens, they won't cover the cost of fixing your car.
Breakdown assistance usually covers some basic fixing stuff on the spot, or towing to the garage. Alternative transport, or a few night in the hotel in case you need to wait for your car.

Even if something happens and you would have to pay for all above yourself, considering you are going yourself you wouldn't pay much more that few hundred quid anyway so what the point in paying 200 for insurance.


The only reasonable option seems to be getting breakdown cover from the continent. Maybe some French or Spanish insurance companies. You might try German ADAC as well. They seem to be way cheaper than Irish insurers.

Last time I was travelling over the continent I got a cover from one of the Polish companies for 2 months. Cost - 10 euros.

It covered pretty much the same as AA here for 150 quid.

CiniO

zagmund wrote: »

I had a look at the ADAC site, but couldn't read it since it was in German. Unless I'm missing something they are most likely to only provide cover in terms of getting it back to Germany and not Ireland (where I need it).

Some of the other policies seem very limited also - they talked of overnight cover up to a price of €35 per person which won't go too far, and a maximum payout of €750, which for a charge of €200 seems pretty poor odds.

z

Plenty of companies on the continent will have no problems providing you cover all over EU no matter where your car is registered.
As I told you I got a cover from Polish company for 2 months for about 10 euros. (cover was comparable to what is offered by AA in Ireland for 200 euro).

The only trick is to understand the terms and conditions in foreign language.