Green Flag breakdown insurance

Phil_aka_Pip

They're hiking their premium by 25%. Natch, I can do without that, and will be shortly asking those cute little meerkats if they've got anything better. In the meantime if anyone knows of a decent deal for around £65, please let me know.

ronnyb

I've been with autoaid for a good few years. I think this years renewal was £43. If you break down they send someone to repair or tow you to a destination of choice, not the nearest garage. You then have to pay and claim back from them. I think theyre Martin Lewis's top recommendation. Also you're covered for spouse as well, driving any car.

mart

ronnyb said:

... or tow .. to a destination of choice, ... Also you're covered for spouse as well, ...

They’d take my wife away to a destination of my choice? Now that’s a f*#*ing good deal.

WezV

Phil_aka_Pip said:

They're hiking their premium by 25%. Natch, I can do without that, and will be shortly asking those cute little meerkats if they've got anything better. In the meantime if anyone knows of a decent deal for around £65, please let me know.

I phoned them and asked why it had been increased by so much.

 I gave them the option of lowering my premium, or cancelling it.

They started to try and justify the cost.  I repeated the two acceptable options.

They then applied a “loyalty discount” which took it right down to the previous years premium.

The thing is, if they had just done 5-10%  I wouldn’t have even bothered... 20%+ is taking the piss.

Phil_aka_Pip

@WezV well done Sir! I will try that.

RandallFlagg

Theres no customer loyalty in insurance, that's all breakdown cover is, shop around every renewal for all insurance.

stickyfiddle

Insurance is always the same. Every year, no matter which company you use or where you live, they try and increase by 15%+, you have to go through the pantomime of getting quotes and calling your current guys to tell them you want no increase or you'll switch. 

Presumably there are enough people who just blindly pay it that the companies think it's worth the charade for the rest of us

paulnb57

Oir AA renewal is always high, phone and tell em to shove it and it miraculously reduces a lot...

boogieman

A thought, don’t know if it works or if they’ve sussed this out to stop you doing it? Switch every year between AA, RAC and Green Flag. Companies generally give you the best rates if you’ve “just joined”. 

It’s a stupid system really, same as the yearly car insurance merry go round or having to threaten to cancel with Sky/Virgin/broadband providers: you’d think these companies would reward loyalty but the marketing bods seem to think it’s better their way. I imagine it must work out more profitable for them or they wouldn’t do it, but it’s so bloody annoying for the consumer. 

Phil_aka_Pip

Funnily enough the Churchill car insurance this year is only £2 different to last year.

monofin

Are Green Flag any good. I've just let my AA membership expire. Had it since 1995 and this year's price was £192 which I felt was ridiculous

Electro_Ham

paulnb57 said:

Oir AA renewal is always high, phone and tell em to shove it and it miraculously reduces a lot...

Nice one. I've cancelled a £170 / year service that I've used twice in 10 years. I can't complain about the service. But when you can get something for a fraction of the cost.......

JohnPerry

stickyfiddle said:

Insurance is always the same. Every year, no matter which company you use or where you live, they try and increase by 15%+, you have to go through the pantomime of getting quotes and calling your current guys to tell them you want no increase or you'll switch. 

Presumably there are enough people who just blindly pay it that the companies think it's worth the charade for the rest of us

There sure are. Last year my mum (85 and not a web user at all) came over to see if I could get her a better deal than her latest Churchill quote on a ten-year-old Ford Ka. They wanted £925. No accidents or convictions. Ten years ago they were easily the best quote. She’d just been automatically paying their increase every year since. I got an Aviva quote with better cover for about £230. She couldn’t believe it.

She is exactly the demographic they are looking to fleece

DiscoStu

Another AutoAid convert here. I was using Gem for full breakdown cover (better price than the usual suspects and better reviews) but they wanted a lot more this year so I moved. I hadn't heard of AutoAid before but after a lot of googling and reading forum reviews they sound really good. Full cover for £43.31!

Phil_aka_Pip

AutoAid looks good especially for the price

Flink_Poyd

I'm always torn with this sort of thing, great if your car breaks down but I wouldn't have needed it at any point over the last 8 years. 

m_c

It's worth considering a premium/added benefits bank account.
I pay £17 per month for my current account, and I get AA roadside/relay/home start/accident management, along with mobile phone insurance, and travel insurance.

I used to pay over £10 a month just for mobile phone insurance ( I have a habit of destroying of phones so get good value out of any phone insurance!), and even the best deals for breakdown were about £50.

crunchman

As @m_c said, it's worth looking at the bank account ones.  We get breakdown cover with ours plus travel insurance.  We also lose a lot of the fees for using cards abroad.

The travel insurance is quite handy.  We claimed on it last year for a UK holiday when my wife's nan died and we had to cancel.  There was an excess to pay, but we did get the cost of the holiday back.

For the cost of the AA one, we get the breakdown cover plus all the other stuff as well.

Dave_Vader

Last time I looked at Green Flag it said it wouldn't cover musicians, so I didn't bother with them since the only time I drive a long way I've usually got a car full of guitars.

bobblehat

Maybe a bit late in the day for you now but I always use Tesco Clubcard vouchers to exchange for RAC cover.

monofin

bobblehat said:

Maybe a bit late in the day for you now but I always use Tesco Clubcard vouchers to exchange for RAC cover.

Just done exactly that. Free top level cover for a year. Yay!!