Cheeky bloody car insurers..

I recently parted company with my trusted car bought new in 1997. I sold it for scrap on the website scrapmycar.com. I got £74 for it which I was happy with. However when I tried to get money back from the Insurance Company (2 months) I was told I actually owed them £12+ because there was a cancellation fee of £50 so I said not to bother cancelling it but was told it had already gone through. Needless to say I had a battle with them and got the demand revoked but how dare they charge for a non-existent car.

I am just about to renew and this time I am adding breakdown cover. It makes comparisons even more complicated.
There is so much small print to check.
As long as it costs the equivalent of less than £13 a month, I will be better off as I can then cancel my bank account which includes various benefits, but the only one of use is the breakdown cover.

Motor insurance is a nightmare, every company has different inclusions and extras, not only that, on renewal date most will ask for a much higher premium. Thankfully it is now quite easy to change insurers online, for my car the highest quote last time was £1400 the lowest £480 for similar benefits. There is no supplier loyalty, all you can do is change if they want too much.

I have always had breakdown cover but never had it included in car insurance. Looking now for a good deal on car insurance but now I over 70 premiums getting very high.

Based on our two previous cars, over 12 years, we don't really need breakdown insurance for our newer cars (First MOT due this month). But keep it a safety net for DW, in case she should ever need it.
Another aspect of the "Sell by fear" method, (Bad Breath, BO, Teeth colour / falling out, Receding Gums, Don't offend anyone etc)

As an ex Civil Servant I still have both my Insurance & Breakdown through CSMA now Boundless. I pay a membership fee but both my Insurance & Breakdown are very good value. My Breakdown covers Homestart, I drive an automatic; recovery to garage/home/onward travel. DH & I were recovered from Solihull to Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex (Surrey) & I've had to use Homestart several times (local garage attends usually with 15 mins)

I have Legal cover & also cover for a driver in case I'm taken ill. My Insurance is with LV & my breakdown is Britannia

I took out car insurance about 4/5 years ago on returning to live in the UK. Breakdown and recovery service was a free incentive. The following year the quoted cost did not include breakdown and recovery so I phoned them and asked them if I could have it included again as an incentive to stay with them. They agreed and it has been included every year since then. The company is well-known, not expensive and certainly has a good reputation. It might be worth phoning your insurers and asking for the same.

Have you looked at Guild of Experienced Motorists for breakdown cover

Breakdown insurance has never been offered to me as part of the policy or as an added extra. I've usually had AA for breakdown cover but have changed to Green Flag (very satisfactory so far); and I've shopped around for the best insurance deal. Last time, I saved £300.

If your insurance company offers breakdown cover, it's easy enough to see who it's with. Hastings uses RAC, but charges us half the price RAC did for the self-same service.

I also recommend Autoaid. All the family use it and never been let down.

Really cross that despite so few cars being on the roads for lockdown the car insurance has gone up this year! How can they justify that? They must have had a lot fewer claims this year the greedy ***’s

Just about to renew insurance for a very old car. I moved last year premium doubled, reason change of post code. I am now moving back to my old post code , should be interesting.

My son is a Scout Leader. Some years ago he was driving a van load of tents and equipment as the advance party for a Scout Camp. He had only gone about 20 miles when he had a major breakdown. 30 boys and leaders would be following behind by coach, needing places to sleep and food to eat, so he was in a major flap over it.
The RAC couldn’t fix the van quickly, so they towed him all the way to South Wales, in relays. When they reached the camp site they helped him to unload all the gear, then towed the van to a nearby garage for repair. The boys arrived shortly afterwards.
That’s what I call service above and beyond! They certainly saved the day.

My daughter works in car insurance - her mantra is take photographs, especially if the other party is a non-British HGV - as in take photos of their vehicle, their number plates, any documents or names on the vehicles and most importantly the driver’s face!

I’ve just re-done our breakdown cover and would warn that you only get what you pay for. A friend pays a fraction of mine but is only covered to being recovered within a 20mile radius - no good for us, as DH was once uplifted and recovered by 3 different vehicles from the North of Scotland to Durham through the night. Some don’t cover home start and others will only take your car to the nearest garage - not one you might prefer. No point in having your car in Edinburgh if you live in Kent??

I’ve never taken the breakdown cover offered by my insurance company.

Don't think breakdown cover is the norm with insurance in UK. Guess you end up paying for it anyway!

We had it included in the cost, probably as a promotion, the first year we went with Hastings, who’d come up anyway as the best buy when I did the annual price comparison. We’ve paid for it as an option since then, but it’s been much cheaper than the amount we’d paid separately.

Same as rowyn, with auto aid, broke down on A1, towing a caravan, they towed us all the way to campsite at Edinburgh, brilliant service

My breakdown cover for both car and motorcycle has always been separate policies, but with same providers for each. However changed my bike insurer to a different provider, who said they didn't provide breakdown cover for bikes over a certain age! Sauce! So stayed with the original provider for the breakdown cover.

Depends which company you use as they are all different. I’ve had it included in the cost and I’ve also had it as an extra.

Re breakdown -- never had with insurance and if i had I'm sure it would have cost me a lot. At moment I use AutoAid, which is reasonable , and proved to work well as I had to call them when my clutch gave up.

In 35 years of driving I have been fortunate and never had an accident or really broken down- just 2 instances of needing help with a puncture. Legal cover on the used Audi I bought was offered free with Audi for the first 3 years and I always used to save my Tesco points for recovery with the RAC.
Every penny counts when you live alone and there is only one pension coming in.
Prior to Audi free cover I never included any extras with my car insurance as it was far cheaper to obtain my own. Nowadays, there is always a special offer somewhere to be had.

If you get quotes via a comparison site you can put it in at the beginning when you add all your requirements, but other than that it’s always been an optional extra as far as I know.

I always used to be with AA then whenever I called them out I got a Green Flag van or local mechanic with Green Flag on their van. So I thought I’m not paying AA prices if they’re contracting on, so I don’t bother with them I go straight to Green Flag now.

Only ever offered breakdown cover as an extra too. Insurance is a minefield anyway, the time you spend trailing through the small print drives me bonkers. I've had my dogs in and they have put it up a third, I've never claimed & she is only six. Greedy, greedy companies the whole lot of them!!!!!

The OP doesn’t say which company she is with it would be interesting to know