I'm seriously contemplating a trip abroad later in the year, despite having to be recovered from both Scotland and Wales last year. In addition to obtaining comprehensive breakdown and recovery insurance, what do you seasoned foreign travellers do in respect of vehicle insurance, or is the basic cover with the British car insurance adequate?
Looking to take that cover, it was more the bus insurance, in case of accident I was wondering about, may be overthinking it.
Back in t`day there wasn`t any cover , now they`re falling over themselves to sell you cover which hopefully won`t be needed @SeanOC has a good insurance tale to tell , AA all the way !! (5* of course ...) South of France and his van started cutting out - very naughty on the Peage fully loaded with family and `stuff` for several weeks adventure , the cover paid for a hire car to continue the trip , hotels paid for and storage for the van when it broke down in Lyon... Six weeks later they paid for Sean and myself to fly over , replace the dodgy Accuspark module which ended the cover but is still going strong We drove back in 2 days . Bearing in mind we stopped at his house in Tring to pick up my van and then continued in a Northerly direction finishing at a field in Lutterworth when duty free goods were handed out to the great unwashed at Techenders - a sterling effort A splendid adventure but the fact the AA listened to Sean and were prepared to pay for flights rather than leave it in storage and pay the 3k Euros the garage wanted to `fix` the van - modern garage = no idea ! I never take out insurance when travelling abroad but ...
We took out the AA cover recently when travelling around France as it’s the best as Lasty says. A thing to remember is, there is a charge levied by the government to tow you off the toll roads, it’s €119 and 50 percent more at night between 6pm and 6 am, the AA can't do this or anyone else only the registered tow company. We also ordered a tag for ease of payment at the booth.
What is this tag you speak of buddy. Doing a fair bit of toll road to Normandy in sept so might be handy. just looked at the tag site. It’s going to cost about €40 for the tag. I take it there’s no savings on the tolls to recover this cost? I might just go without lol. Cash is king
The tag is handy if you don’t want to faff about at the toll or queue at busy times. I use them in this country as part of my job and find them much easier to use than cards or cash
We also take a tent as back-up; just in case the van is knackered and needs to go in for work or whatever it means a holiday isnt totally ruined. Haven't had to use it yet but it's a "just in case" measure....
Just drive your bus around in the UK for a few hundred miles before you go including a reasonable motorway run. Then it wont even spot that it is in France and break down... Seriously, shaking it down and breaking off the bits that were going to fail in France but beforehand makes it much more likely you will make it around without trouble.
To be fair, the breakdowns were unusual, a carb top breaking through metal fatigue and rear brake shoes delaminating..not your normal stuff....normally due about 5k miles over 10 weeks holidays.
I broke down in 2004 and still stuck here ... I got a car transporter in the garden if anyone is stuck ... lot region btw Also top banana lives near civray...
