Been looking about this morning for a european breakdown policy for an upcoming trip. Most range from £40-£150 depending on services provided/cover etc. Have gone with Swinton who seem to offer a pretty good service at £7.99 per month. They are offering the first 3 months free with free cancellation at any time without penalty so in theory this policy could cost me nothing. Just to let others aware. I know it's not a great saving but is at least a 3 tanks of petrol for my 749.
ADAC cover all of europe in any vehicle, my wife and i pay about 80 euro for the entire years full cover. When in the UK ADAC just send out the AA. Otherwise anywhere in europe we are covered .
ADAC is great value and IIRC you don't have to be in |Germany to buy it. They have strong reciprocal trading set up right thru Europe.
It depends on how often you travel abroad. Some insurances come with European cover built in so these are potentially good value if you need bike insurance at the same time. If an infrequent traveler the green flag policy has a 14 day cancellation option, simply take the cover the day before you go and cancel it when you come back (assuming this is within 14 days) if you need help its competitive and if you don't it's free
Free with Carole nash insurance. Highly recomended. Used it a coulple of times. Flew us home in 2008 from Lisbon Portugal the day after MGP with taxis each end. Was also offered free hire car if we wanted to continue our trip. Bike was home a fortnight later.
Sadly on the very first page explaining the cover on offer it states that to obtain cover requires your place of residence to be in Germany. Shame because what they offer is very good. Andy
If you mean The membership in ADAC it states that you have to be in Germany to join online via that link, not that you have to be resident there to obtain cover. But I may not be looking in the right place. Googling 'ADAC from the UK' etc takes you to lots of forum pages where people insist that you can join from the UK in writing or over the phone: many of them recommend using this number, which is for English-speakers: 00 49 94152344 This is quite useful: Review – ADAC European Breakdown Cover | Our Tour
I just googled adac and the first page came up with the residence condition, no more than that. Happy to be proved wrong. Andy
Carole Nash offer EU Breakdown cover for free for future reference, I personally found them always way to expensive for me, but they do seem to do some cheap policies for some
Well now my bike is eventually back in the country after my breakdown in France I feel I can properly comment on the policy I took out through Swinton. Initial contact was quick however local breakdown company took about 3 hours to respond. Mechanic was pleasant but had no bike experience and his jump pack was unsuitable for bikes. Bike was taken to local Ducati Dealer in Lyon who spent less than an hour trying to identify the problem. Once it was clear that the bike was going no further Swinton staff were quick to arrange my return home, booking a flight that very evening. I had looked on Skyscanner and that same flight was priced at £655. I was home for midnight. On my return I submitted a claim for taxi fares from the dealership to Lyon airport and from Glasgow airport to my home. I also claimed for a bag I had to buy to accommodate all my gear and a cancellation fee for a hotel I had pre-booked in Holland. This came to about £150.00. I was expecting some resistance over the bag but the full amount was paid into my bank account approximately 2 weeks after submission. The only quibble I have with the cover is the transport company, Eclipse Recovery Dover(now part of the Kavanagh Group) used by Swinton to get my bike back. An initial return date of 7th October came and went without any notification from either Swinton or Eclipse Recovery. Despite numerous phone calls to Eclipse I was given the runaround on every occasion. Bike eventually delivered to my mechanic last night(he received a call about 5pm to say they were an hour away. Just as well he tends to work late). All in all can't really complain about the service received from Swinton and the quick payment of expenses but not impressed with the recovery services used at either side of the channel. Think there would have been a far from different outcome if my bike had expired at the top of one of the many passes I had ridden in the previous week and not in a large city.
I can't be bothered to check the small print, because I switched from Carole Nash to Ducati Insurance earlier in the year, due to price difference, so I rely on my blanket Car/Bike/wife UK breakdown cover with RAC (via Aviva though - much cheaper) and it only covers one of the cars for EU. However, although I have relied on the Carole Nash UK/EU bike breakdown cover in the past (not needed to use it) I did read somewhere that you had to be careful with older bikes of relatively low value (in my case that would have applied...) because they may be able to write off the bike instead of repatriating it! This could be untrue though.
Yes there was discussion re that with Swinton. Basically if it will cost more to repatriate the bike than it's worth they will give you the value. Makes sense I suppose but could prove problematic depending on the figure they come up with.
