Don't skimp on the cheapest car insurance - add breakdown recovery cover!
It is possible to add breakdown recovery cover to the cheapest car insurance cover - and a very valuable and useful addition this cover option can prove to be.
My family and I were forced to call for help with our vehicle when we took a car trip to France to enjoy the wonders of Disneyland Paris this winter.
The car seemed fine on the journey to France. We set off from Chichester in the south of England during the early hours on a Monday morning in January.
The weather was frosty but the roads were clear and we made good time heading towards the Euro Tunnel station at Folkestone.
After about an hour, it started to snow. As we approached Folkestone, the snow became much heavier, leading to lanes on the motorway becoming unsafe to drive on.
But our car was apparently taking the winter weather in its stride. Stopping for the tunnel ride under the English Channel, the car started fine for its journey on French roads.
While snow was a problem on and off, there were no setbacks during our three-hour journey south. When we reached our Disneyland hotel at Marne la Vallée, we parked our car and began our fun holiday in what is a giant playground for adults as well as children.
Enjoying our four-night break, we gave little thought to our family car parked up nearby. Perhaps we should have done though. As the holiday drew to an end, it became clear that the night-time temperatures had been plummeting.
While there was no further bad weather, snow still covered the ground - plenty of snow to have snowball fights and to lie down to draw snow angels.
It was freezing cold every day. Checking the temperature recorded by our in-car digital thermometer gauge, the temperature had reached minus 10 degrees Celsius on our last night - and it had seemed colder on previous nights.
Not wanting to be caught out by any problems with the car for our journey back home, I decided to run and de-ice the car for about 20 minutes on the morning we were to return.
The car seemed to start fine but after a short while I noticed the engine temperature was not rising. "Odd," I thought.
I decided to drive the vehicle around the car park for a test spin. As I reversed out of our parking space, a friend travelling with us looked frantic as he urged me to stop.
A huge puddle of oil had formed on the tarmac surface of the parking space. Lifting the bonnet, I could see oil pumping out slowly but surely from the dipstick outlet.
As this was an engine problem that I could not fix, I had no alternative but to call the European breakdown recovery service we were signed up to with our cheap insurance for car drivers.
To be honest, I was delighted with the service. English-speaking French assistants were always available to check on progress of the breakdown.
A mechanic arrived. Seeing oil everywhere, the problem was deemed irreparable and my family and the car would have to be 'recovered' back to the UK.
Our car was loaded on to a low-loader breakdown truck and the journey north began. While it took three hours to reach Disneyland Paris, the trip back to a ferry port was nearer five hours.
We had to pay out for the P&O ferry crossing from Calais back to England because Euro Tunnel does not accept broken down vehicles on to the rail service, we were told by the French breakdown experts. However, our insurance policy allows us to claim back at least some of the extra monies paid out.
Loading the car on to the ferry was a problem - I had to restart the car because P&O would not tow the vehicle on. However, we were eventually parked onboard and soon docked in Dover.
An English breakdown truck towed us off. It took an hour or so to transfer to a low-loader recovery vehicle and then we were on our way home. After a tiring night-time journey, six hours later we were back!
Heaven knows how much this service might have cost had we not had breakdown recovery cover. Judging by the price sheets in the breakdown trucks, it looked like many hundreds of pounds. Also, it would have been very difficult to have negotiated the language barrier to try to organise any repairs or recovery.
So, I recommend paying a little extra money for breakdown recovery. With a young family to care for, matters would have been much worse if I had failed to tick that little box on the insurance application form!
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