Red Pennant cover policies
I have sent this by email to the Club today:
I contacted the Club today to arrange Red Pennant insurance cover for car and caravan for our forthcoming trip to France. This is booked via the Club, throughout, including ferries and sites.
We are spending some time touring in the UK before setting off from Poole on 13 June. We also have two weeks in southern England on our return to the UK on 4 July.
We have Mayday breakdown insurance via the Club which covers us in the UK.
I was very surprised to find that the RP representative wanted me to take out cover to include the time that we were in the UK for the whole trip. This was significantly more expensive than I expected.
When I queried this decision and said that I only wanted the overseas portion covered, I was told that they were unable to offer me cover. Rather than just leave it, I asked to speak to a Club representative. The RP rep then went and spoke to a manager.and, after some time, came back and stated that they would cover me for the France portion, but that they could not cover me for the first day on English soil, only once we had arrived in France. That was fine. I also had to confirm that I could get home by 5 July so that RP cover could be provided up to that date.
I don't understand this and would like to understand why RP wish to charge members significantly more and provide cover for the UK elements, when cover exists with Mayday.
I am sure we cannot be the only caravanners who tour the UK prior to departing these shores, or on return.
Please can you advise why your Red Pennant insurance specification cannot properly allow for such common circumstances?
Does anyone have any insights on this approach by the Club?
Comments
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I personally agree with you. We often have a UK portion of our holiday before embarking for abroad and found the same problem as you.
They try to explain it away by stating in the event of a breakdown in the UK they would have liabilities for the rest of the holiday. Sometimes those extra days push you into a significantly higher bracket of premiums.
There's nothing much wrong with the actual cover but I've managed to arrange my cover with other providers at a much lower cost and am happy with cover provided.
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In the past the Club have said that Red Pennant starts the day you leave home. The reason surely is that if you have a medical incident or major breakdown before you get to the port of your UK departure you will be covered for any expenses like crossings or sites booked and that is why you are being asked to cover the period from the date you leave home. Now some might not be too bothered by that but many will. I suspect they are trying to offer a policy that suits the greatest cross section of members and that is how it is underwritten. If they do allow you to cover just the overseas part of the trip the UK part will be at your own risk.
David
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Red Pennant is a comprehensive insurance policy and hardly cheap and seems to be designed to cover the whole holiday from the day you leave home. From what you read on here that there are a fair few of the experienced overseas travellers that use alternatives to Red Pennant, probable don't book sites in advance etc. But if you are a less seasoned traveller and you have booked one of the Western Channel overnight crossing with cabin cost say £500 and also booked and paid for all the sites you will be using on that holiday six weeks ahead of your crossing then you have a lot to lose without proper cover. There could be a great deal of money at stake. I would have thought that if you are going to take out a comprehensive policy you would need it door to door. I can understand not needing the cover on your return to the UK but not before you go.
David
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For UK purposes the Club offers MayDay policies with three levels of cover and several possible add on options. One can choose.
But for European purposes the Club only offers this one comprehensive Red Pennant policy. It does cover just about everything, and seems tailored to people who have booked and paid for all their sites in advance.
But not everyone wants that full package and I do sympathise with the OP in his plea for more flexibility.
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The OP also has my sympathies, but on one occasion when we had RP cover we did breakdown on the way to the ferry. It was a Friday afternoon and the ferry was on the Saturday night. We could not get the M/H looked at until Monday which meant that we missed the ferry. RP were very good in dealing with it and keeping in touch with us throughout, the M/H was fixed on Monday and we caught the Tuesday ferry which was considerably more expensive, paid for by RP.
On your return to the UK if you want to spend some time touring as we often do, all that RP as is that you allow time (within your cover)from the ferry to home (home to home policy) so if like us you were coming into Hull and could be home by midnight that night, then that is when your cover would stop, however if you were coming into Plymouth and it would take you 2 nights stops to get home then you need to allow for these in your cover. It doesn't stop you touring once back in the UK and then going onto your Mayday cover.
This was explained at some length before on CT but I'm pretty sure you won't be able to find it.
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Was your Red Pennant quote just for 'car and caravan' or did it incude personal cover as well?
I feel that Red Pennant really ought to be more flexible, and allow you to choose options for cover, especially if you have MayDay already and are only purchasing cover for the car and caravan and not adding on 'personal cover'. I do understand that it's an 'all-inclusive' policy, but as you say, this isn't what some members want.
We tried to get more comprensive cover than our 'ordinary' breakdown cover, when hosting a Caravan Club Tour in France. At the time our caravan was stored in France, and we would have been quite happy had they offered to cover us in France, from pick up at the storage depot, to return to the storage depot, but we were told they couldn't cover us at all unless the cover was 'from home and back to home'. As our home was in the UK that simply wasn't possible so we had to rely on our own breakdown insurance.
At the end of the day you will probably go elsewhere, and the CMC will not get money they could have had. I hope you are able to get the sort of cover you want - but this is one area where needs are not always met.
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Which they should be.
We have breakdown cover with LV= through our bank account. Similarly our Medical cover and Personal Accident are covered under the Nationwide policy. The caravan insurance is fully covereed in Europe with Saga.
One thing to note is that the caravan insurance with the club does NOT include repatriation of the van in the event of an accident when detached from the car. This is picked up in the Red Pennant aspect.
Saga cover this aspect, so for myself I am happy with the cover that I have. Others have different needs and priorities.
I would say though that I did save hundreds of pounds last year when we had 2 long separate holidays in Europe.
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We haven't used RP for the last 2 years as it doesn't cover the trailer which or trike is carried on. We have cover through both Saga which is in with our insurance and we also have cover free with our Nationwide flex plus account, time will tell how good they are if we have to use them.
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In the past the Club have said that Red Pennant starts the day you leave home. The reason surely is that if you have a medical incident or major breakdown before you get to the port of your UK departure you will be covered for any expenses like crossings or sites booked and that is why you are being asked to cover the period from the date you leave home. Now some might not be too bothered by that but many will. I suspect they are trying to offer a policy that suits the greatest cross section of members and that is how it is underwritten. If they do allow you to cover just the overseas part of the trip the UK part will be at your own risk.
David
Thank you for your reply - and for all of the other replies. My question is not one of absolutes but, as has been remarked upon, one of flexibility.
If I left home for a month's UK tour (not impossible), before the Europe leg, RP seems to require me to have cover for the whole period. RP insurance does not appear to make any discrimination and applies the same amount of cover for the whole period.
That approach is not, apparently, meeting the needs of all caravanners - or it is finding the way to generate more cash for RP little additional risk.
I acknowledge that accidents can happen on the way to the boat, but the consequent riska are significantly less in terms of cover on this side of the channel and the further away the date of sailing is. There appears to be no recognition of this in the way the Caravan Club (through Red Pennant) applies its cover policy for overseas trips.
That is not right in actuarial terms so, surely, it cannot be right in how it is applied to caravanners booking their holidays via RP?
David GH
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It does seem an odd way to do things. Although now back in the UK we are still technically covered as they said they might as well make the end date the end of the bracket, as it would not be any cheaper if we put an earlier date, because we were still in excess of the shorter period. I suppose it would have been useful if we were stuck in France, although I am not sure I am covered for anything here. We have Mayday in any event.
It would be a better system if they charged for the exact number of days, rather than specific periods. Or at the very least less dramatic jumps between periods.
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I would imagine that the vast majority of members that go abroad and take out Red Pennant do just that. Leave home and depending on where they live take a day or three to get to the port and off they go on their overseas adventure, the same on the way back. That is how the policy is designed and priced. As such a door to door requirement is perfectly logical as it applies to the majority of members buying the product. Now I don't particularly understand the requirement on the return journey as once you are back in the UK nothing can affect the overseas part of the trip and assuming you have alternate UK cover and I would agree that perhaps that needs a rethink from the Club. However there is a great deal of logic in insisting on the policy starting from the point of leaving home as the risks are far greater. Perhaps Red Pennant can't suit all, we are all free to look for alternatives if it doesn't meet our individual requirements?
Some years ago the Club started to think about a combined UK/Europe breakdown cover which might overcome some of the issues raised but nothing seems to have come of that.
David
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David, I accept your comments except that we are not really dealing with Red Pennant as such but with the Caravan Club. The Club, in my view, should be looking to provide the sort of flexible policy that members want and which help members to make flexible choices.
In my case I am staying for well over a week within a few miles of the port both before and after my overseas jaunt.
I accept I could break down on the way to/from the port on the day of sailing, but the risk is minimal.
I agree, it would make sense if Mayday (or another) could offer some form of Europe cover in much the same way as other motoring organisations do (although I suspect these days it is all insurance/actuarially driven [pun not intended] by all these organisations).
David GH
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We have the same problem as we live a fair distance from any of the ports. Being retired, we have plenty of time to visit places/friends on the way to and from the port, if we are going over the Channel, we have 500 miles to drive each way and want to get some value out of the cost of doing so.
I queried the point of having to take the cover from when we left home and got the reply about being covered if something happened to the car or van within a certain period before the start date of the policy, maybe 14 days. I did ask why the cover before the start date could not apply whether you were actually at home, or away somewhere, but got no reply.
As we never usually book sites in advance, other than CC sites, the only cost we have to lose is the ferry, this year £112.50, which is a lot less than our Red Pennant premium.
We therefor only take out the RP at the last minute, having booked our ferry many months previously, take the risk ourselves of possibly losing the ferry fare, and also ofcourse the RP premium, and we keep several days in reserve to allow time to cover normal travel to and from the port.
On the occasions when we book a long, much more expensive crossing, such as from Hull, we would be travelling from home to the port directly, so no problem with cover on those occasions.I do think it is time that the Club offered a more flexible policy where you could have more choice on which risks you wanted to cover to suit your circumstances, rather than a blanket cover, and time the premium was on a daily basis rather than set periods.
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Kj
I raised many of those points with the Club some years ago. I pointed out to them that groupings of days covered don't really match the average holiday length. RP goes 1-6 days, 7-12 days 13-24 days so if you go on a fairly average two week holiday you have to pay for three weeks cover. I suggest exactly what you mentioned basing the premium on a daily or weekly basis. The reply was that whichever way you try and cut the cake its what the insurance underwriters decide and I got the impression that the Club had limited powers to insist on their way. I have no idea if this has changed. I suppose the Club could change underwriters but that could mean an adverse effect on the pretty generous medical screening and as a result could make RP more expensive for some of us than it currently is.
David
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