Red Penant breakdown cover - its a joke

TG, they give you a membership number over the phone and their assistance numbers can be sent via email. However I'm like you in that I don't like being panicked into anything. Good luck.

 yes I do like to have things in writting, I'm a bit belts and braces. Thanks for the good wishes.

 .... Its not that part of the RP that is an issue its the fact that they don't cover the scooter or the trailer, unless its the motorhome that breaks down.

 .....

I understood that ... I'd be p'd off too. But I'd go anyway 

 sorry if I'm a bit grumpy, we are going regardless. OH has bought spare wheel bearings just incase 

Just to say that I have spoken to a few underwritters today. It would appear the reason why you can't cover a trailer for breakdown, is that its not classed as a vehicle in the UK. Trailers are not registered/MOTed/insured they don't have their own registration
number but take on the number of the vehicle towing them. It would appear all breakdown companies will recover the trailer if the motorhome breaks down provided that you have informed them of the trailer before hand.

So I would now like to apologise to RP for calling them a joke

I'm still not happy that the scooter trike is not counted as a 'Secondary Vehicle' so will not be covered under those terms but I guess that is something that I will have to take  up with the Manager of Red Penant in the future. For now I just want to get
my outfit covered so I can go on a well deserved holiday.

MM/peegeenine, I have asked both those questions. 

A caravan is differant as its the 'sleeping accomodation' so they would recover the caravan seperate if it failed. I agreee that a caravan is a trailer but not in terms of breakdown it would appear.

I asked could the trailer be covered seperately NO it can't.

So yes they are being selective in what they or should be said the underwritters are classing as a trailer. But then it would appear they are not alone in this.

They are also being selective in what they will cover that travels on the trailer, a car is covered as a 'Secondary Vehicle' but not so a motorbike/scooter/trike yet that is just what our Trike is, it is our secondary vehicle.

Just to confirm IF the motorhome was to breakdown they do recover the whole combination.

Having said all this RP is still one of the best policies around if you are looking to go away for the length of time we are and if you want to take out the Personal cover aswell.

MM/peegeenine, I have asked both those questions. 

A caravan is differant as its the 'sleeping accomodation' so they would recover the caravan seperate if it failed. I agreee that a caravan is a trailer but not in terms of breakdown it would appear. .....

What if you tow a caravan with a motorhome?  Which 'sleeping accomodation' do you pick? 

Trust you  maybe you would like to ask the question of RP at
the moment I'm losing the will to live

Tammy, that's just in the UK as it's Mayday/Green Flag. Probably (without checking) 2 different insurers.

Edit: You probably know that anyway! Trying to post whilst cooking is not recommended!

 cooking what's that, oh is it that time of day again where
has the day gone.

WN the thing is we have Mayday for the UK and the trailer is covered, so one would assume as both are sold by CC the level of cover would be the same.
When I told the agent yesterday that Mayday does cover the trailer she seemed surprised. I'm still waiting for the club to get back to me, time is moving on and I don't have much longer to get this sorted still
hoping that someone can fix it, we arn't the only M/H that tows.

Just to update, Green Flag Euro + will cover the trailer if it suffers machanical breakdown while being towed, if they can't fix it at the side of the road they will recover it to a garage for repair The
policy runs for a full 12 mths and for us costs £99.64, the agent checked to make sure and he has written it down on the documents he is sending out to us that this is a condition it
covers all the elemants that we require of a breakdown policy.

We have extended out medical insurance from 31 - 65 days with our Bank for a cost of £60 full Euro cover for 12mths.

The CC have had ample time to resolve the issues we raised, they have not been back in touch with us, despite 3 threads running on CT where other members were asking for advice and help. 

We are both dissapointed with the Clubs lask of care and customer service in this area of business. They have now lost our business £235+ for the RP (usually £350 + as we usually go twice) and when our Mayday is due they will lose that aswell, as we will
go direct to Green Flag.

With this in mind we did introduce the secondary vehicle cover specifically for motorhomes.  For the moment we have only opened it up to small cars.  However, having spoken to the Underwriters, we will look at the possibility of opening it up to small scooters/motorbikes in the future.  For the moment, we would have to look at each case individually and look at the size of the “bike/trike” to see if we can repatriate it on a multi-car transporter.

I asked if this could be considered and was told no, its only for cars.

As with any vehicles, we say that we would not recover the trailer if it is not economically viable to do so. 

This was never mentioned

For instance, if your trailer were to have a problem and could not be repaired on the continent and the trailer is worth £1000 but it would cost us £2000 to bring it back, then we would not bring the trailer home, but would scrap it in situ.  We would then bring your secondary vehicle home on a multi-deck transporter if you decided that you don’t want to drive it home yourselves.  You would then continue as normal and come home with your motorhome.  This is the same principle of us bringing a caravan home if something has happened to the caravan, but the car is still OK to drive.

This is not available at present for a trike/motorbike I was told. I was also told that the trailer is not covered if IT broke down, only if the motorhome broke down, The words used were "the trailer has to be towable" if the trailer is towable why would we require breakdown assistance.

Where possible, we will try and get the trailer repaired. 

This was never offered at any stage of my conversation, I asked for it and was told we don't cover trailers seperately

It may mean that you would have to leave it where it is for a few days and then come back and collect it, if you decide not to wait whilst it is being repaired.  We would much prefer that you be able to continue with your own outfit where possible. 

We would have been quite happy to accept this clause

We would not hire or buy you a new trailer if yours were to break down.

We wouldn't expect RP to

Alternatively, if something were to happen to your secondary vehicle, then we would get it back to your motorhome to be loaded on to your trailer.  If this isn’t possible, then we would repatriate it on a multi-car transporter.  In the event of an accident, then we would liaise with your motor insurance company first (as we would with any accident case).

Only available to cars/quadbike at present.

I hope that this helps everybody and clarifies the situation.  I have to apologise to everybody for the delay, but I am on leave at the moment and have been busy travelling in France. 

I'm sorry but I find incredulous that as Duty Manager you are on holiday and that YOU are the only one in the Club that could make this statement. To be on DUTY means to me that you are in the office.

We do value our Members and our customer service and I am disappointed that Tammygirl has gone elsewhere.

Obviously not that dissapointed as it has taken a week to get this sorted out, I think I've been very patient, I'm very dissapointed with the lack of understanding and customer care I've received, the club has had ample time to respond to me. This is the last thing I wanted when trying to plan the final details of my long awaited holiday. I asked more than once isn't there something the club could do as an add on to give me cover. I was not offered any assistance with this so YES I've taken my business to someone who does listen and helps.

I have only scanned this thread as boredom with the pointlessness of it set in quickly.  

Most insurance has excesses generally to try and prevent pointless and fatuitous claims. 

If a trailer being towed is involved in an accident in most cases it will be covered by the vehicle insurance not the breakdown cover. 

If a trailer breaks down, which frankly is very unlikely if it has been properly maintained, then the repair cost is unlikely to be high and certainly not enough to warrant an expensive repatriation to the UK.  Wheel bearing have been mentioned and any reasonably competent garage would be able to replace one quickly and at little cost. 

I would not even bother calling CC Ltd, other than to perhaps get a pointer to a local garage, any more than I would bother insuring the safety matches we carry in the MH against fire.  

Well thank you for your very helpful and interesting comments if you had bothered to read the thread you would have understood what it was about. Next time I need your advice on anything I will be sure to give you a wide berth.

DD the trailer is new, we carry a spare and a spare set of wheel bearings. OH was in the Army for 45 years so isn't some div as you seem to be suggesting. In his early years he was commander of an Armoured Recovery Vehicle so has plenty of knowledge when it comes to breakdowns and mechanical problems, however it is beyond even his super powers to carry a trailer on his back to a garage, if the  wheel bearings failed and the stub axle broke hence the reason we wanted to make sure that, if this rare incident should happen we would be able to get the trailer recovered to a garage. However that seems to be beyond the capabilities of the club (at present) Not wishing to bore you even more but we both spent quite considerable amount of time with the agent trying to sort something out but to no avail, so as I said we went elsewhere and have now got cover that ticks ALL our boxes. By the way for those that's interested the scooter in question is not some 50cc cheap run around affair, its £7000+  its a big 3 wheel Peugeot Metropolis and weighs 256kg so quite a heavy bike to carry on your back along with a broken trailer. I do sincerely hope I have not bored you too much with these extra details.

EDIT: OH says of course he could carry a spare Stub axle aswell but I think he should just take a spare trailer to be on the safe side

There is one thing I forgot to mention.  The most common failure regarding trailers is a puncture.  These are not easily detected when towing with a heavy vehicle and usually result in a wheel being wrecked.  Most careful people
therefore carry a spare. 

I suppose one of those tyre pressure motoring devices, like the one I have just bought for the van, could prove useful in this situation. Although depending on the length of the MH and trailer a signal booster might be required.

Great idea, I'm begining to think we should sell the motorhome and buy a brakedown truck and tent tour
Europe waiting for folk to breakdown, could make a killing