Multi bike / car breakdown insurance

[Nurse Julie]

Hi Chaps.
Last year I had 'personal' multi car / bike breakdown insurance with GEM. Covered me + 1 other named person as the driver, or as a passenger in/on any car or bike of any age. Special intro deal for 1st year was about £73. Just had renewal through and premium is £119 in total. Not surprised at the increase as repeat business and new business is always cheaper. Before I spend hours trawling the interweb for new cover, can anyone suggest an alternative provider?
Ta in advance
Julie x

[Bryanj]

 Brittania, now part of LV you insure a reg plus a another person and get cover for anything, check if you get a special deal for being in a union as it worked for me

[matthewmosse]

You might get a decent deal off Rac or Aa as a new member, plus Rac do let you pay with clubcard vouchers. As far as I am aware, my bikes are covered by my insurance company for breakdown in uk automatically, and by rac - we pay more than you are being quoted, but there are 4 adults on our policy, any vehicle of any age as long as its all legal, only exception being they don't cover lifestock transport and intially argued the toss with my dad when he broke down towing a horsebox, even though it was being used to move a cart, not a horse. Worth always checking they cover full distance recovery as a breakdown being crowned off by a high milage bill for recovery if its capped at 10 miles tends to suck.

[UK Pete]

I stick with the RAC, they have always been perfect think they are less than a hundred as well, some of these firms sub the work out and you see old pikeys in right shitty breakdown trucks doing their work, i think green flag sub out
pete

[Nurse Julie]

I stick with the RAC, they have always been perfect think they are less than a hundred as well, some of these firms sub the work out and you see old pikeys in right shitty breakdown trucks doing their work, i think green flag sub out
pete

I have just looked at that policy Pete and the only problem, which is what stopped me getting the RAC policy last year if I remember correctly, is that it will not cover vehicles over 11 years old, which would exclude all of our bikes  which I think is bloody weird.

[UK Pete]

oh crap i never new that, that kinda buggers me up as well, i will look in to that

[Nurse Julie]

oh crap i never new that, that kinda buggers me up as well, i will look in to that

You may still be OK Pete, if you have paid the 'additional premium' or have a 'higher class of cover' according to the RAC policy summary (I have just read all 46 pages of it !!!!). The doc is very ambiguous and I can still only see the under 11 year old clause.

[Green1]

I'm with the AA apparently a silver member probably because im a mug and havn't shopped around for years. Supposedly I'm covered in any vehicle as a driver or passanger anywhere in the UK
Maybe I should read the small print 

[totty]

Take a look at Autoaid, works a bit differently to the others - you have to pay for recovery then claim back, but the coverage and price are good.

[matthewmosse]

We are with Rac, whatever the package we are on, it deffinately covers over 11 year old vehicles, they have recovered our 1960 landrover and a few of my bikes over the years, in fact I think only my father in law has ever had them out for anything under 11 years old. All the breakdown firms I have expirience of use sub contractors, especially for recovery, I have used them all. My worst expiriences were all with the Aa who a mate of mine had any vehicle he was in cover with them and I was running a lot of lifts for him in my Bmw sidecar, which was electrically awful. The Aa kept us waiting about 6 hours both times we had them out, for a variety of silly reasons, like wanting to send an mechanic to verify that a spark plug had broken off in the head and it was not a roadside fix ( on a sunday afternoon about 60 miles from the nearest open plug stockist when they dont carry any spares) then they sent 3 different recovery vehicles which either had wrong straps or wrong driver to recover a motorbike  as they had decided a r90/6 motorbike and sidecar was a 6 series bmw car....

[Green1]

Theres nothing worse than when the truck turns up to confirm youve broken down and then drives away.
I have owned to many italian bikes and vans to know that all firms are guilty of doing that.

[Spitfire]

Never thought of a combined policy as my Carol Nash insurance has recovery built into the policy and for our cars I have a direct Line breakdown cover, I used to be with the AA but the cost seems to be on an escalator and goes up every year and not by small amounts.

Cheers

Dennis

[matthewmosse]

Theres nothing worse than when the truck turns up to confirm youve broken down and then drives away.
I have owned to many italian bikes and vans to know that all firms are guilty of doing that.

I did convince the rac to dispence with the silly, 'yes, it is clearly broken' thing the last 2 callouts, both Kawasaki Kh125 related, first one they accepted a siezed engine with lumps of alloy on the spark plug was accepted as terminal and recovery was sent from the off, I've also got them to do recovery from the off by telling them there is a really bad knocking from the engine and I don't want to risk further dammage. Rac seem far more willing to accept an owner diagnosis and just send recovery from the off the key seems to be to let them know you know your way around the bike, have rebuilt the engine on it etc and have tools to attempt repair, then the recovery van is sent not the fix it van ( I have never yet had any of the breakdown guys ever fix anything - ever, always recovery in any case )
Best service was when my other Bmw had the cluch pack up, the Carol Nash breakdown service I had was second to none, same van for repair and recovery, and a mechanic familiar with bikes- I have only seen a mechanic who knew about bikes in any detail twice in all my breakdown recovery encounters. Funny thing, my Cb500/4 is my only Honda to need recovery, and only once when she snapped a camshaft, and even then she still got 4 miles back to where I was staying, the recovery was more because of the 70 miles home was going to be very slow and nervous with only 1/2 power. Compare that to my Bmws that between then have 6 breakdowns over a mere 2 years. God I love Hondas, a decade with few failiures, and the camshaft incedent was on an engine that was an assortment of poor parts crudely bolted together as a stop gap, that lasted 2 years but was intended to get a different bike 70 miles before getting scrapped.

[mike the bike]

I was in the AA Rider Club once.  I thought as it was aimed at the motorcyclist then it would be geared up for bikes but it wasn't the case.  My. CB550K ground to a halt when the chain snapped.  I told the bod at the other end of the phone what the fault was and that I needed transportation,  not a roadside repair.  I waited in the pub for an hour fot the flatbed to show up, 2 pints later an Escort van arrived.
It took another 3 pints for a flatbed to turn up.  Honestly,  what a bunch of muppets.