When you compare breakdown cover, you need to look at several aspects of the service provided by the breakdown cover providers you see. You want to compare prices, what’s covered, and what’s not. If you’re worried about starting your car in your own driveway, look for cover for home starts. But, it is also important to know how long it will take for help to arrive, so you should compare response time as well. Response time isn’t as easy to compare as price and coverage, but it can be gathered from various places on the web.

Response time for roadside assistance will depend on many factors like how many calls your breakdown insurer is fielding at the time you call, how remote your location is, and whether there are other mitigating factors, like snowstorms.

Here are the response times for the main UK breakdown cover services:

1. Under 30 minutes is the time strived for by the AA
2. 30 minutes is quoted as the average response time for Green Flag
3. 30 to 40 minutes for RAC, one of the UK firms providing 24/7/365 callouts.
4. Under 40 minutes advertised by RescueMyCar.com
5. Under 40 minutes advertised by GEM Motoring Assist.
6. 39 minutes is the average response time of Total Rescue

As you can see, the response times among the top breakdown cover providers does not differ a lot. Therefore you can compare other important decision points, confident that if you choose a top breakdown cover provider, you’ll have a good response time.