Of for a spin to France on my 99 trophy for 5 days. After a wee problem with my bike I am now thinking of cover. What do you boys/ girls and the undecided recommend.
I'm with Brittania, personal cover for both me and my wife despite which of our bikes/car we are riding/in. Found them friendly to deal with, and having been with them before, did it again after a 4 year layoff. Cannot help with alternatives as never used anybody else. Enjoy yer French France ride, don't forget those helmet stickers/vests etc, they are still legally required over there, as is bulb kit etc
I used Qdos I heard they were OK. Payed £25 for a single trip but fortunately I didn't have to use them. Cheap Breakdown Cover and Car, Van and Motorcycle Breakdown Insurance from QDOS Rescue Services
Thanks for the reply's, although I have not heard of any one being done for the helmet stickers, I have still done them, and after riding my invisible to cars FJR1300, and trying out an impact, I always where high viz now. Brittania are to expensive at £130, but may look in to them for the year cover when I renew. Qdos only do European cover on bikes less than 13 years, and the AA want £80 for the few days, and that's only dropping it of at the nearest garage.
Might be worth having a word with your insurance company. My wife's with Swinton and I'm with MCE both do European breakdown cover but neither advertise it (or we didn't know about it).
I'm with Swinton and have a rolling cover for uk. It's something like £8pm and for personal not allocated vehicle. My friend an I just came back from the alps, he paid something like £30 for the week AA european cover whilst I upped mine and it cost me an extra £3pm not £30. Swinton said I can reinstate immediately back to previous cost. Try Swinton
I'm with Carol Nash insurance who give full European Breakdown cover free with their fully comp cover
Small tip, don't skimp on the cover and read the small print and how much the "unlimited" amounts are, get repatriation high end cover, cost me £2.5k plus vat to get my bike home from Munich, cover only paid the vat!
Well the old girl made it (well that should be the old wife made it as she was a bitch all the way) every cover I looked into, just takes you to the nearest garage unless its unfixable.
I had European breakdown cover with Carole Nash for years, with only a couple of UK breakdowns, however in 2012 I broke down in Venice. The service was absolutely brilliant. They phoned me to advise me on all arrangements to recover to a Triumph dealer in Italy. Paid for extra nights accommodation. Insisted that they arrange breakdown recovery. When they had a report from the dealer, they asked me what I proffered I.e. Recover bike back to UK or repaired in Italy. They sorted out UK recovery, only recovered by a UK recovery team (AA) to ensure safe delivery. Arranged flights back to UK. Until you are in the position of being broken down in a country with little knowledge of the language etc, you don't appreciate how excellent the service was.
Carole Nash have obviously upped their game! A few years ago four of us were staying in a town called Chatel-Guyon near Clermont-Ferrand. One of the guys got a rear wheel puncture in his Pan and our attempts to fix it failed so he called Carole Nash. Big mistake. They wouldn't deal with the local bike shops and despite being 20k from the Michelin factory they used a courier to bring a tyre from England and then left us to sort out getting it fitted. If we had gone to the bike shop (who had the tyres in stock) in the first place it would have been done in an afternoon. Instead it took 2 days. The courier for the tyre (just a bloke in a car not a specialist firm) must have cost a fortune. Why on earth they took that approach I've no idea but it ensured none of us would ever use them again. I had a yearly policy with the AA for years and only used them twice but both times they were efficient and got the problem sorted.
