Just found the paperwork. When I renewed in January the renewal quote was £225.33. After I rang then up and laughed at them they dropped it to £169 - a 25% reduction. That’s for Roadside, Relay, Joint Cover and complementary Home Start. Last year I talked them from £172.19 down to £149. As I say I’ve been doing this for years now.
I suspect they work out what they want you to pay, divide it by 0.8 and wait for you to ring up and complain so they can knock 25% off and pretend to be the good guy. If you don’t ring then they are quids in thank you very much.
I paid £269 with the AA last year for me and the wife any car cover,Road Side,Home Start,Relay,Stay Mobile plus Breakdown Repair Cover so parts and labour upto £535 upto six claims a year for the MX5…Went through Quidco for £120 cashback so true cost £149 done this two years on the trot switching between my wifes name and mine.
And just to add, if you scroll down when you are on the Autoaid page you’ll find cover for £34 (Roadside Recovery) basic stuff, gets you 10 miles recovery to the nearest garage and covers 1 car.
+1 for rescue my car. It works a bit differently in that the yearly cost of £30 is very low compared to others, but you pay an excess of £40 if you need to use it. I very rarely need it, so each year is a win ;]
AutoAid looks the best bet. Just got to check that there is no restriction on the age of the car you are travelling in. Does not state anywhere on their blurb, but I will check. Thanks everyone.
I’m getting fed up with Autoaid sending me reminders. It starts with around two months to go for renewal, in fact I had one first telling me to change to auto renewal.
I never have auto renew on any policy, anyway it’s up for renewal next month. Since July I get reminders, had 5 now and I suppose there will be more before the deadline, nowt like wanting to grab your money early.
I do Aviva breakdown, two named cars for any driver and me and the wife named drivers for any car or passenger. Home start and recovery included for just under £100 which I think is reasonable.
My wife and I pay £15 a month to our bank, First Direct and we get…
Full RAC Recovery cover for any car we happen to be in.
Annual Worldwide Travel Insurance
Cover for our Smartphones for loss, theft, accidental damage or even just developing faults for no reason.
We have a joint account so only one payment of £15 covers both of us, in effect £7.50 a month each. Bargain.
‘Which’ did a review of all of these packages offered by banks and First Direct were runners up, close behind Nationwide. They reckoned the total package would cost at least £300 to buy separately. The travel and phone insurance is by Aviva so all good solid brands.
Some packages but other banks they found were poor value though, so it’s worth reading the small print if your considering signing up for one of these.
UPDATE: Just noticed they closed the offer to new applicants on 20 March this year. Really sorry to raise your hopes.
I have stayed with the AA because I have received excellent service for decades (so I am a less than ideal customer!). Every year I complain to them about the annoying charade of haggling over the ridiculous price increase. I simply get the price for the equivalent RAC service and ask for a price match. Very occasionally I have to go back and repeat the process with a different call handler. If others are happy to pay over the odds to finance the debt burden incurred by the various owners of the AA, I can hardly complain.
IIRC, some years ago , a hedge fund/private equity outfit took over the AA. They then loaded the AA up with debt, used the debt to pay themselves dividends as is the way with hedge funds, and what you’re left with is a ‘zombie’ company which exists really only to (try to) service the debts, and extract as much as possible from customers.
Most of my life, I’ve never bothered with breakdown insurance. I figured that, as I maintained my cars well, I could do without being insured against everything under the sun. However, 4 or 5 years ago, Saga , my then insurer, offered me a free year’s basic breakdown cover, so why not ? The following year, they offered it for £19. After mulling that over for a while, I lashed out the £19. As it happened, my daily car failed on me , so I did manage to get value for money for that £19. It was a AA van that showed up.
The following year, Saga increased the price again, so I declined. I think round about then, Autoaid got mentioned on here, or Moneysavingexpert. Special offer of 18 months cover for the price of 12 at around £43.50, I think it was. I’ve renewed a couple of times with them. They’ve increased the price at each renewal, and as mentioned above they’re around £60 now, so I’m keeping a close eye on that. What I particularly like about Autoaid, is that it’s me that’s insured, not the car, so I don’t have to worry about ‘age of the car’ limits, or what car I happen to be driving at the time of breakdown.
