Are you really covered if you Breakdown with cover from your Bank?

If you follow my other blog you will know that this week we had to cancel our holiday as our car broke down on the side of the A30 in Devon.

I bank with the Halifax who offer UK breakdown cover with their ultimate reward current account and was always confident that I had cover in case of an emergency such as this, but, along with hundreds of other people I discovered that my cover was not worth the paper it was written on.
The service with my bank includes:

• Roadside assistance for mechanical breakdown.
• Home service.
• Recovery of the vehicle, driver, and up to 7 passengers, to the nearest or most suitable garage if your vehicle cannot be repaired at the roadside.
• Account holders are covered personally, rather than for a specific vehicle.

I want to make it clear that all three of the Roadside Assistant drivers that helped me were wonderful and really helpful, but they are as frustrated by these inadequate policies as I was on this day.

Basically, roadside assistance is just that. I was towed to a lay by, my engine looked at briefly where it was suspected that the turbo had blown and couldn’t be fixed where we were. It was in the lay by where I received a phone call to say that I was not covered for anything else and that if I wanted to get to my destination, or home that I had to upgrade my cover which would cost me a further £117.

To add insult to injury, my upgraded cover would only take me 50 miles and an extra mileage to home would cost me a further £2.50 a mile payable in advance, so I waved goodbye to £260 just to get home.

Please, if you do one thing today, check your roadside cover if you have it through a bank.

I am so grateful that this didn’t happen whilst we were in France, otherwise we would have been stranded!

If like me, your car isn’t fixable, recoup some of your money by trading it in for spares or repairs, you will be surprised at how much you get back!

• aa
• bank
• breakdown cover