Car & Caravan Breakdown Insurance

Only interested in UK cover. This policy does not appear to offer any greater benefits than Green Flag for £60. 

Green Flag would not meet my full requirements as a caravanner which is why I choose Mayday. If I have left the caravan on site, go out for the day in the car and break down, say, 25 miles from site then Mayday will return me to the caravan and provide the choice of recovery home at a time/date to suit me or return us to the caravan and the car to a local repairer.  

It's in the title, "Full European & Nationwide Recovery" so if your vehicle cannot be repaired, it will be recovered back to your home, a local garage or to your destination.......and I need it for Europe :) And then there's Onward travel.......Hello! I don't work for them, only pointing out for other members who may want cover in UK and Europe.

Having read what was offered the onward travel is for driver and passengers. I read no mention of caravans. I see no mention of taking the outfit to a destination and then taking the outfit home. 

Notice covers a caravan up to 7m long. Is that the shipping length I wonder? 

The breakdown is for the vehicle ie the car, and if the vehicle does break down then it will recover both as will Red Pennant.

But if the caravan breaks down ie wheel bearing, axle, hitch or whatever then it is not covered, whereas Red Pennant covers the caravan breakdown as well.

I asked an advisor to explain this paragraph to me:

• Caravans and Trailers
  If Your Vehicle suffers a Breakdown and Your caravan/trailer is attached, providing the caravan/trailer is
  fitted with a standard towing hitch and does not exceed 7 metres in length (not including the length of
  the A-frame and hitch), Your caravan/trailer will be recovered with Your Vehicle at no extra cost.

"Sorry sir, we only cover the breakdown of the vehicle, not the caravan"

Red Pennant does verge on the ridiculous regarding pricing, but it covers all eventualities.

http://www.driverguardian.co.uk/Images/Live/DG%20Standard.pdf

Posted after previous post which supports my general comment.

The specifics seem to say that the 7 m is body length (excluding drawbar) which is the max for trailers on vehicles below 3.5 tonne (?)

So that bit is OK?

The glaring omission is breakdown of the CARAVAN (flat tyre etc)

IMHO, ALL of these policies are badly written and need to have far more explanation specific to caravanners.

Having said all that, the alternatives to Club offerings such as the commonly mentioned ADAC and Safeguard (bolt on to their insurance, £65, purchased after much investigation, DOES COVER CARAVAN) are worth considering if you want to avoid the premium price of Mayday AND RP for cover in UK and Europe. There is also the issue of RP confusing additions of personal, travel etc items that are included but only cover caravan holidays (so you need yet more cover for other types of holiday?)

The bit that says 'Caravans and Trailers
If Your Vehicle suffers a Breakdown and Your caravan/trailer is attached, ' would also bother me. 

I have just insured my car and caravan through the green flag web site for £53 and that's recovery plus. according to the documentation and the following on the website(if you purchase the caravan and trailer cover with online 40% discount)

With Green Flag you get all the benefits of our standard breakdown cover for any caravan or trailer you’re towing (up to a weight limit of 3.5 tonnes and size limits of 7 metres long, 3 metres high and 2.55 metres wide.) This way you’re fully covered on any campsite within the UK. We have a massive range of recovery vehicles available so that if we can’t repair your caravan or trailer at the roadside, we can get you, your car and your caravan or trailer moving again in no time.

So basically your caravan is entitled to the same cover as your car the only omission from Red pennant is dual recovery.

As I comented in a previous post you will not now how good the cover is until you need to use it, haveing heard numuras horror stories from people being forced to pay thousands of euros to get their car fixed locally due to their brakedown being while the caravan is on site and car breaking down while solo, been going across the water for over 25y having used RP most of the time, I have broken down a few times but being able to fix the vehical every time bar once when a bearing went in the gearbox of the sorri on the way to Samure, the OH was very disappointed I could't fix it, RP had a disco to me within 3 days for me to continue my hols and the car returned to my home address, so alteyernative hough RP is expensive I suppose you pay get what you pay for.

Hi johnray, I posted the following earlier this evening in a thread about ADAC. From what I can see, and others have mentioned it, the cover for caravans is when the van is attached and you run the risk of not being covered. I was in this situation for many years as I suspect are many and, if you are happy with that then that's your choice but my findings, when I looked in more detail, were that only RP and Safeguard gave the cover in this circumstance. 

We considered ADAC 12 months ago and ValDa kindly sent me an English language version of their brochure.

I spent a considerable amount of time looking onto the options, including phoning several providers,and, at that time, the only two providers that stated they would recover a car and caravan when the caravan was not attached were RP and Safeguard.

A member posted on CT that he was refused recovery of his caravan which was onsite next to his car that was being recovered. Several posters thought it would be OK with ADAC but that was no reassurance so went with Safeguard.

I think Green Flag is similar to Mayday (although you can get cover increased for Europe) BUT my last query with them was that the 7m is TOTAL length which is OK for smaller vans, plus, as you say no dual recovery, just brought to one destination of your choice. However the combined price of Mayday and RP is large so alternatives that you have investigated and decided meet your needs are still valid choices providing the tiny print is what you expect.

As I say, it would be much better if we could write the policy with simple things like:

Covers caravan and car breakdown.

Any length

Caravan connected at the time or not.

UK, Europe at your choice (with costs clearly stated.

Dual recovery at extra cost (if you wanted it)

A previous post mentioning repair whilst abroad slightly ignores the fact that repatriation is always the insurers choice, not yours (they will work to minimise their overall costs whilst agreeing a solution with you?) so you may have to pay for the repair whilst abroad and not at your chosen dealer?