I have now spent a week trying to solve this problem:
I have a 6 month old company car with comprehensive europe wide breakdown and insurance. however we want to tow our folding camper to france and I'm struggling to work out how:
the camper gets returned to the UK in the event of an accident, major car failure etc.
the AA/RAC etc want to flog me full on breakdown cover (that we don't need) and insurance policies don't seem to cover it. my leasing company and car manufacturer aren't interested and I'm at a loss!
there must be thousands of new car/company car drivers who take their caravans/trailers to europe. how do they cover this??
please help!
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Ask your company if they can extend your breakdown insurance to cover your caravan - our company car was covered in this way, as were those of other members of staff with caravans or trailer tents.
Any new car, company or not comes with a yrs UK/Europe breakdown cover. It don't however recover trailer as you have found out. Only way is to take out some more cover that recovers car & trailer. However no breakdown cover will recover a trailer with car if car breaks down/accident damaged when trailer is not attached to car, ie if your FC is on site at time, so it risks getting stuck there anyway.
Also if trailer is damaged while being towed & car is ok, no recovery either, so nothing will cover for all eventualities. If your company won't extend cover you will need to take out some more car/trailer cover or take a chance.
I suppose we must have been lucky in that our company car was not leased, but owned by the company my OH worked for, so they were prepared to be flexible on insurance policies.
Some breakdown companies do cover the car and the caravan, whether separated or not - but those that don't are in the majority and I don't think many people realise this. Your question is a very valid one, and earlier this year there was a long discussion about what was covered, and by whom. Most people assume that if they take out cover for the car and caravan then it covers both in all eventualities. In reality most policies state that they cover the car and caravan only when the caravan is being towed.
In the end we accepted that whatever cover we took out now that we no longer have company cover, it probably wouldn't cover all possibilities, and came to the conclusion that one of our sons would be quite happy to go (at our expense) and recover the van if it was left stranded.
Our car is a Lex autolease car, the RAC europe breakdown cover is for the car AND caravan, if the car breaks down the car and caravan will be taken to a single destination, however its unclear that if the wheel comes off the van you will be covered
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Be mindful of the RAC, we were towing our folding camper last year and had a blow out. RAC expected us to drive 300 miles towing a camper using a space saver wheel! They would not recover us even though we bought the most expensive membership - using our Tesco clubcard vouchers. Luckily the local RAC man knew a local tyre company who replaced our tyre. Since then I have no faith in RAC.
We are also taking our folding camper abroad this year. Am going to get euro breakdown and caravan insurance through AA - that way I figure I'm going to be covered without each insurer passing the buck. That's the theory anyway but I hope I don't get to check what happens in practice!
We are in a similar situation and just bite the bullet and buy Red Pennant cover for our three weeks in France.
We looked at the options but could not get the cover we needed elsewhere, I must say the Red Pennant offers a brilliant level of benefit in the event of an accident or breakdown, commencing a couple of weeks before the holiday.
Sorter. If I had the problem you describe - and it could happen in England, Scotland or France- I would speak nicely to the camp site owner, leave the caravan on the camp site and go back for it later when I had the car repaired, then tow it home. Panic over ! Just the same in France as I would do in the north of Scotland. Everyone is worried about this problem happening in France , but they forget it's just the same if it happened in the UK
Hi
I did the same as Ulti-mates and went with Red pennant for the sole reason that they will re pat my van with or without the car. Though my car isn't a company car and is 14yrs old. Cost me £130 for 18 days cover. If like Berriow said you had to leave it on a site in France it could cost you nearly that to go and get it. The more I think about it the happier I am that I went with red pennant. I was getting a price from one Breakdown Company for my hols can’t remember which but in the conversation the rep said she used red pennant and not the company she worked for. I suppose you can’t cover for everything but red pennant covers most.
Cheers Richard W
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Topic: Insurance/Breakdown help badly needed!
