There are few things in this world more frustrating than standing on the hard shoulder of the motorway, waiting for a recovery vehicle to come and tow you away from the scene of a breakdown. One of them is struggling with a breakdown when you don't have adequate insurance cover.
Insurance is often one of the first expenditures to be cut during periods of fiscal uncertainty. With the European economy on a back footing and the recession in severe danger of deepening, it can be tempting to cut costs that do not provide an immediate return. For every ten pounds you reduce your weekly grocery shopping, you will experience a ten pound drop in your standard of living - but for every ten pounds you reduce your insurance there will be no obvious effect. It will be business as usual until something goes wrong.
Nevertheless as anyone who has ever been caught in a costly situation without the relevant insurance will tell you, it is better to pay for peace of mind on a monthly basis than it is to end up in a situation where you might struggle to cover your costs.
In the above example, that same ten pounds a week in insurance costs might prevent you from having to shell out hundreds of pounds for emergency
breakdown recovery. In a worst case scenario in which you do not have the money to pay for this service lying around, you will struggle to retrieve your vehicle and this can cause you to incur both the costs of vehicle replacement and loss of earnings whilst you make alternative arrangements.
Thankfully for those of us who cannot afford to pay for the most comprehensive cover, there are a few different tiers of breakdown insurance available and the cheapest is often reasonably priced. Whilst these insurance plans will offer no-frills services, they will be greatly preferable to having no cover whatsoever in the event of a breakdown. It is worth bearing in mind that the cheapest plans will probably leave you exposed to loss of earnings and may result in additional costs - often these plans will allow the recovery team to deposit your vehicle at a nearby garage of their choice. These garages will rarely offer you the best value for money or the best possible service because it is not in their best interest to spend the necessary money to do so. After all, you are unlikely to return to the same motorway garage any time soon so they will not benefit from your positive experience of their work.
Choosing the right breakdown insurance plan for you can be difficult, and as with any insurance contract you should be careful to read all the relevant small print before you sign on the dotted line. Remember that insurance should not be seen as a cost but as an investment in your security and peace of mind: the last thing you want is to be stranded by the roadside for an indefinite length of time.