To think road side assistance organisations should NOT do this!

[MargoLovebutter]

Levy an extra and significant sum of money if you join their organisation when you are already broken down?!

Someone please explain to me why I am unreasonable for thinking that this is just shafting the vulnerable.

It's an insurance policy. They make their money by people paying up and not needing to claim. That's how it works. It's no different to house insurance really. Would you think the house insurance companies were being unreasonable if they wouldn't let you pay to start your policy after your house had already been burgled?

I'm with rescue my car and I have top level cover excluding European cover. Less than £30 per year!

I'd like to know which bank it is too, that would save me quite a bit

*@MargoLovebutter

But membership isn't cheap!*

Mine costs abiut £25 a year, its one of the things i add on every year when i do car insurance

Barbara. Nationwide flex account gives brittania rescue as part of it,mobile phone insurance and health travel insurance too

FASH84, the figure you are quoting is 50% of what she'll be paying if she works it out across the year.

Maybe road side assistance insurance should be compulsory like regular car insurance is.

It's a form of insurance. No insurance company would let you take out a policy when you'd just been burgled.

PattiStanger I get mine through my Lloyds platinum account, with other insurance cover too.

As pp said, to me having breakdown cover is all part and parcel of the expense of owning a car. I have home start as well because being older and living on my own it's worth paying the extra for the peace of mind.

I've paid out a fortune over the years and would think it very unfair if your friend was able to get the same service for the same price as those of us who have been insuring ourselves for years.

She should just be thankful that it doesn't work like pet insurance: after you take it out there's a 14 day gap in which if your animal is seen by a vet for an illness you can't claim for it.

@BarbaraofSevillle Halifax you have to pay in a certain amount each month, if you don't hit that it's £15 but still cheap especially if you have it as a joint account as you both are covered. In the last few years I've had two phones replaced and called out the AA at least half a dozen times, plus the travel insurance has covered all of our holidays, so well worth it, I think it's called ultimate reward account or something similar. It's the account we use for our household bills, we then have personal accounts with better interest or other rewards, or salaries go into the Halifax account at leave enough in their to cover mortgage, bills, necessary spending, then move the rest around.

@MargoLovebutter she's paying the price of not organising it in advance. Like if you don't have contents insurance (came up on another thread, a surprising amount of people don't) then you have a flood, it'll cost more to deal with the damage once done than to insure in advance. Hopefully this has been a lesson learned for her, allbeit an expensive one

Thanks for the replies on bank accounts. Definitely something to look into.

We have a Santander 123 account for the cashback on bills and 1.5% interest on up to £20k savings, so I want to keep that, but I don't mind a bit of moving money around to qualify for benefits if the pay in can be cash rather than salary.

Tell her to get Emergency Assist, its about £25 for a year and that includes homestart.

I've been using them for a few years and called them out about 3 times and its the exact same guys the AA used to send out when one of their vans wasn't available.

Thanks trapped, she is stuck with the 'membership' she has now for the year ahead but when she is smarting less at the amount she spent yesterday, I will suggest some of the options I've seen on here, including Emergency Assist.

Try buying home insurance when a leaky pipe has already brought your ceiling down, or car insurance after you've crashed into somebody. Breakdown cover is a form of insurance. If you call them when you already need help you effectively need to pay a call out fee plus an annual premium.

Most insurances explicitly exclude pre-existing conditions. I can’t take out a home contents policy and then claim for losses incurred for a burglary the day before, or ring BUPA and ask for cover for an illness that had already been diagnosed. Even if I paid an increased premium. So from that point of view the fact that breakdown associations are being very generous in attending breakdowns that occurred prior to membership and perfectly entitled to charge extra for this service.

I just paid 46 pounds for the year with Green Flag, I could have paid monthly for 6 pounds something. So hardly "expensive" if you are in the financial position to run a car.

It's ridiculous not to have it, unless you own a breakdown garage/truck yourself and never drive beyond about 20 miles from it.

of course you have to take it out in advance.

We took out European Roadside Assistance before a trip to Europe booked for the following week.

Our battery died in an underground carpark in NL...Roadside Assist wanted to see our ferry crossing ticket in case the car had been in NL a week and we were trying to pull a fast one! I completely understood why they would do that.

Totally. It's insurance. That's lovely me saying your car insurance should be the same as a claim or house insurance the same as building work. You pay and then hope you don't need it.

@myimaginarycathasfleas what do you mean 'it's always a battery?' It was the battery! It was so flat it didn't even register on the machine and once charged enough to work it showed very poor health. It was also the original very old battery! I didn't have to buy theirs and he was honest and said the prices weren't the cheapest but to be honest I just wanted it done and couldn't be bothered to go out and get another one. The guy was great and I was impressed.

It's fair enough really. When I had an old banger I got very good value for money out of my policy. They came out many times and had to tow me once as well.

I suppose it is in the interests of the RAC etc to push new batteries because if more of their members have newer batteries, it reduces the number of call outs they get for flat batteries. Even more so if they sell them at a profit.

It must be that most people don't realise that batteries don't last forever and don't replace them until they absolutely have to, plus don't keep battery chargers or jump leads at home?

We both need our cars for work, so have a battery charger and can jump start from the other car, so can get going quicker than waiting for the breakdown service. Frequent difficulty starting would also be a promp to consider buying a new battery, when we have the time to look around for a good price, rather than having to pay the RAC emergency price.

Should we also only have to pay for car insurance if we have an accident?

Quite!

This is a brilliant idea. I am going to cancel my home insurance right now. After all, if my house burns down I can always phone up an insurance company and get cover as I stand in the smoking ruins .

I think roadside assistance is wonderful, I once had to call them out three times in one weekend ( drove my car into a ditch of shingle and couldn't drive it out, had puncture, car made funny rattling noises - due to shingle - and I was worried about driving on a motorway) . Fortunately they send different people out each time, I couldn't have borne the shame otherwise.

They're a business not a fecking charity