We’re going back to the basics of breakdown cover. We get loads of questions about what exactly these often confusing and quite frankly unnecessarily obtuse insurance terms mean. This one’s all about roadside assistance – what it is, how it works and why, it turns out, it’s pretty important to breakdown cover.
Roadside assistance is the most basic aspect of breakdown cover. If you’ve bought a policy that doesn’t include it then you haven’t bought breakdown cover.
Roadside assistance is the act of a recovery agent attempting to fix your car at the roadside for a certain amount of time. Often this is up to an hour.
If the recovery agent is unable to see to the problem, or fix it there and then, it’s likely your vehicle will be recovered to a garage. To find out more about that, check out our roadside recovery page for all the info.
This depends on the type of policy you have. If we were to take standard UK breakdown cover (with home start included) as an example, you should expect to receive roadside assistance wherever you breakdown within mainland UK.
Often, our customers ask whether they will still receive assistance if they’ve broken down somewhere obscure such as a car park or service station. Even though it’s called “roadside” assistance you will be offered help wherever you breakdown, as long as it’s within the terms of your policy and the assistance provider vehicle can physically get there.
Receiving assistance whilst in Europe can be a little more complicated, especially, and strangely if you breakdown on a private motorway or toll road.
You see, in Europe if you have a problem with your vehicle on a toll road and come to a stop, you have to use the SOS phone provided on the road and then have your vehicle removed from the road before you can seek private breakdown assistance. It’s one of those strange quirks of European travel, but if you’d like to find out more about it, we’ve written a handy guide all about Motorway Fees.
In a word, yes. At least in every CBC policy it is. It's pretty much the first policy benefit you should expect to see and be covered for in any breakdown policy you buy.
If it’s not there, then ask before you buy!
When our cars have a problem, I think it's fair to say we'd like that problem fixed as quickly and professionally as possible. That's why roadside assistance is so important, it's the quickest way that your car can get fixed and you can get back to your journey.
Interested in learning more about breakdown cover policy benefits? We’ve put together a load of pages to help educate our customers and people looking for great breakdown cover, but who may not understand the ins and outs of insurance, take a look at some of our other “Breakdown Cover Explained” pages:
No problem! Take a look at our FAQs page.
Still not satisfied? Head to our contact us page, type in your query and our customer service team will be in touch.
