Breakdown cover is a service provided by insurers which you can buy so that you can call for assistance should your vehicle break down.
The most basic of policies, which should at least provide you with assistance at the roadside to try to fix your vehicle, start from around £25 and will cover you for a period of 12 months.
Like any insurance product, you pay a breakdown cover provider an annual premium so that they take the risks associated with the cost of breaking down away from you. This means that if you buy breakdown cover but don’t use it during the year, you won’t get your money back.
However, the question you will need to ask yourself when trying to decide whether or not to buy car breakdown cover is how much would it cost you if you broke down and didn’t have it?
You can now get the answer to this question by using the new compareandsave.com Breakdown Calculator.
To put things in perspective, if you broke down you are likely to have to pay at least a £50 callout charge. This £50 could buy you a basic breakdown cover policy for two years or a more comprehensive policy for one year.
This £50 callout charge is purely the cost you would pay for an independent recovery contractor to come out to help you. You would then have to pay to be towed at a return mileage rate, at an average cost of £1.50 per mile, which means you pay for the recovery contractor from when he leaves his depot until he returns.
As you can already see, the cost of one breakdown without breakdown assistance could buy you several years’ worth of basic cover. If you break down more than once in a year, you would be set to save even more by having car breakdown cover, because a basic policy will usually allow you to call for help anywhere between 3-7 times in a 12 month period (if the maximum number of callouts is reached in one year the provider may restrict the number of callouts allowed the following year).
Click the link to compare breakdown cover
Last week we published the second instalment of our Breakdown Cover special: “PART 2: What to do if you breakdown on the motorway”.
This week’s instalment, Part 3, will guide you through the procedure to follow if you break down on other roads, as advised by the AA.
If you break down on other roads, the procedure to follow is quite different to that you would use on the motorway.
Part 2 of our Breakdown Cover special will guide you through what to do if you break down on the motorway.
The procedures for what to do if you break down on the motorway are quite different to those you need to follow if you break down on any other type of road (we will talk you through these next week in Part 3).
If you find you are in a situation where you need to stop your vehicle, it can be both dangerous and hard, especially on a motorway. The first thing that you must remember is that motorway hard shoulders are only for emergency use and you should only stop on one if you find you really have no other choice. If you can, it is best to try and find a place off the motorway to pull over.
The hard shoulder is not to be used to go to the toilet, have a quick nap, use your mobile phone or for reading maps/checking routes.
If you do need to stop in an emergency on the motorway, here’s what the AA advises you to do. Why not print off a copy and keep it in your glove box in case you ever need it. Don’t forget to keep your breakdown cover details with your vehicle too.
This section of Part 1 of our Breakdown Cover Special will talk you through how to minimise the chance of the top-ten causes of car breakdowns happening to your vehicle.
According to the AA many of the most common problems dealt with at the roadside can “be avoided with the correct preventative care”.
Breaking down is not only inconvenient; it can also be very dangerous.
This section of the first part of our Breakdown Cover special will guide you through the ten most common causes of breakdowns
Any vehicle can break down, regardless of how old or new it is. You could buy a brand new car and be driving it home from the garage on the motorway and accidently puncture a tyre, or you could be driving your 14-year-old 1.4 litre Peugeot down the road when the exhaust decides it’s time to fall off, suddenly making your small car sound like a tank.
In this five-part special, which will be released over the course of eight weeks, we are going to talk you through different aspects of car breakdowns. Part 1 ‘What are the ten most common causes of breakdowns and what can I do to prevent them?’ will be released tomorrow and will provide handy hints and tips which will hopefully reduce your chances of breaking down in the first place.
Later parts will guide you through such things as what you should do if you break down on motorways and standard roads, how to use jump leads and the importance of a good breakdown cover policy.
According to Sainsbury’s Finance, over 50 million domestic holidays are taken by UK residents each year.
The obvious thing that comes to mind when thinking about travel insurance is the medical cover it provides should you become ill or be injured whilst abroad.
It wouldn’t be silly to presume that Britons taking domestic holidays think they don’t need travel insurance because if they get ill or injured they think they will be treated under the National Health Service (NHS) as normal. Of course, they would be right about the NHS part, but possibly wrong about not having a need for travel insurance.
Travel insurance would not be needed by a Briton to cover their NHS treatment in another area of the UK but it could still be considered an essential because things can go wrong no matter where you are on holiday.
Sainsbury’s Car Insurance recently conducted research and found that 17% of UK drivers are planning on taking their cars abroad this year.
We thought we would bring you some top tips to help if you decide to take a road trip abroad in 2008.
This month we are bringing you our top tips on how to protect your garden goodies from thieves and vandals because recent news has been full of stories about the increase in summer thefts from UK gardens.
Several publications have reported that Halifax Home Insurance found that garden theft goes up by 52% in the summer months, compared with the winter months.
Plus, recent research by NFU Mutual, the rural insurer, found that 33% of the people it surveyed had been victims of garden theft.
The thieves are set to come away with substantial hauls because, according to Lloyds TSB, the average garden contains goodies worth £1,237, with the typical cost of the most expensive garden item at £426.
Possibly more worrying is the fact that Lloyds TSB found that 55% of those surveyed have never even checked to see if their garden contents are covered by their home insurance policies.
Of course, the temptation is to avoid buying nice things for our gardens in case they get stolen. However, seeing as though summer sun in Britain is a rarity these days, we should be making the most of our gardens when we can and not let the thieves ruin it for us. So, how can we fight back against the garden criminals?
When people think of travel insurance, they generally think of it as being something to protect them while they are on holiday.
However, some people forget that travel insurance is also there to protect them before they set off.
Most travel insurance will include an element of cancellation cover to cover the traveller if they need to cancel the trip because events such as illness, the death of a ‘close family member’ and redundancy.
When you go to buy your travel insurance, the insurer will not ask you when you want cover to begin and end but will instead ask you for your departure and return dates.
This can be quite confusing for those people wondering about their cancellation cover because it would appear it doesn’t start until the day of departure. Some people may think this means that if you can’t make the holiday on the day of departure then your cancellation cover will kick in regardless of when the insurance was purchased.
What some people don’t realise is that this cover will only apply if the travel insurance policy was purchased before the event causing the need to cancel occurs. If a family member becomes ill after you have booked your holiday but before you have purchased your travel insurance and they then happen to pass away before you go on holiday, your insurer may not cover you for cancelling your holiday because the death will not be totally unexpected.
Another possible scenario could be that you have booked your holiday and get ill in the time frame before you purchase your travel insurance. Your cancellation cover will therefore not be valid if you were ill at the time you purchased your travel insurance because you will have been aware of the slightest possibility that you may not make your holiday.
The key thing to learn from these possible scenarios is that buying your travel insurance as close to the time of booking your holiday is probably the most sensible thing to do.
If you compare travel insurance it won’t take you long to find the policy that’s right for your individual needs and circumstances. If you have any doubts about whether or not you can get insurance cover, it is probably best to make these queries before you book your holiday.
Click the link to compare travel insurance
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