A Guide to Car Breakdown Cover

In the world of insurance, car breakdown cover is not ranked perhaps as highly as it should be. Most of us are aware that we should have some level of travel insurance and obviously you can’t escape car insurance unless you fancy a nice fine and perhaps the loss of your licence. The question is; “just how important is breakdown cover?”

I will endeavour to change the way you think about this cover and perhaps persuade you that it is in fact a valuable cover to have.

Most of you will be familiar with seeing at least one broken down car on every motorway journey you take. You could be forgiven for thinking this means it isn’t a common problem, you’d also be mistaken. One large roadside assistance company reported 2.5 million call-out’s in just one year and those are not the most recent figures and only account for a portion of all breakdowns. With the amount of older cars on the road rapidly increasing you can be sure that the situations only getting worse.

In many cases the cause of the breakdown could have been avoided if the owner had maintained their vehicle correctly. It is easy to forget simple things such as checking the pressure and wear and tear of your tyres. Keeping your tyres at the incorrect level of inflation could cause a blow-out whilst driving, resulting in you being stranded on the side of a busy 4 lane motorway. Not the nicest experience let me tell you.

Among the most common causes of breakdown are; battery failure, running out of fuel, flat or blown out tyre and various other engine faults more often than not cause by a lack of maintenance.

This is where car breakdown cover comes in; depending on the level of cover you choose you could have your car transported to a garage and be safely taken home avoiding hours of unnecessary stress and worry. It is important to think carefully about the level of cover you wish to purchase. You can expect the basic level of cover offered by most companies to afford you a roadside fix and if this is not possible recovery to the nearest garage. Next up from this is usually the option of being taken to any UK destination, most probably the safety of your home and further additions see features such as fixing of your car at home and the provision of onward travel or accommodation should you need it.

You can help minimise the risk of a breakdown by having your vehicle serviced regularly, checking bulbs and wipers are working, checking oil level, tyre pressure, water/coolant levels and battery status. It is certainly worthwhile considering breakdown cover as you never know when you may need it and it could prove invaluable.