Compare Roadside Assistance Breakdown Cover

Roadside assistance is typically the most basic level of service available from providers of breakdown cover. Roadside assistance will usually involve an engineer coming to you and your vehicle during a breakdown, in order to try to fix it at the roadside. Most roadside assistance services also include towing of the vehicle to a nearby garage for further servicing if the engineer is not successful in getting the car back on the road.

No. Although breakdown cover usually includes the services of an engineer at the roadside, the details may vary considerably from policy to policy, so it’s worth checking the details thoroughly before opting for any particular provider.

The variations in roadside recovery services include:

Regardless of how well-maintained your vehicle is, it’s very hard to remove the risk of breaking down completely. Breaking down is always a frustrating experience and if you’re stuck somewhere, dark, cold or even dangerous, roadside recovery can be a lifeline.

Most breakdown cover policies will include roadside assistance, which means you can arrange for an engineer to locate you and attempt to fix your vehicle by the roadside, by calling an emergency number. If they are not able to recover your vehicle and get you back on the road, you will usually be towed to a nearby garage.

This basic level of breakdown cover is popular with drivers as it’s difficult to completely remove the risk of breaking down, which is something that happens to most drivers at some point in their lives. Unless you are on a motorway, where some level of recovery is often provided automatically to broken down vehicles, breaking down can be stressful, frustrating and sometimes dangerous.

If you rarely drive your car, or if you use it for very local journeys only, you may not feel that you will benefit from roadside assistance services. In addition, those who have the skills necessary to fix their cars themselves may also decide to do without breakdown cover completely. If you risk it however, and fail to take out breakdown cover, you can be penalised with a very large bill if you need emergency recovery without having a policy beforehand.

Some providers offer ‘pay as you go’ roadside recovery services to those who do not want to sign up to a full breakdown policy. Others will assist you at the roadside, but the cost can run into many hundreds of pounds.