Slash your car breakdown cover to £34 a year

Fancy snapping up comprehensive car breakdown cover from just £34 per year? Alison Hunt rounds up the best prices from the UK's top four car breakdown policies.

With many of us experiencing a ground frost last night, winter is certainly on its way. And once you've scraped the ice off the windscreen there's nothing more annoying to discover the car won't start. Aarrghh!

Of course, many of us choose to have breakdown cover. Depending on the level of cover you've chosen, this generally means you have access to a fleet of mechanics, 24/7, who can hopefully fix your vehicle and get you on the road again.

And while not all problems can be fixed at the side of the road, the cover generally includes towing your vehicle to the nearest garage - and could even include taking you to your destination.

Unfortunately, breakdown cover is a bit of a minefield to plough through. Do you need to cover anyone driving your car, or do you need to be covered in any vehicle you drive? Does your partner need to be covered too?

What sort of cover do you need - Roadside assistance to get you moving (or tow you to a garage) when out and about, Homestart in case the car won't start on the drive, or Relay, which will get you to your destination?

To make things a little simpler I've looked at four of the biggest breakdown companies, breaking down their policies into two tables - those that cover the car, and those that cover the individual in the UK.

Roadside - means your vehicle will be fixed at the side of the road, as long as you are ¼ mile away from home (1 mile for Green Insurance). If it can't be fixed, it will be towed to a garage up to 10 miles away.

Homestart/At Home - your car will be fixed if it breaks down at home, or within ¼ mile from your home.

Relay - you, your vehicle and up to 7 people will be taken to your UK destination.

Annual cost of cover for a vehicle - any driver/driver and spouse (Internet prices)

As you can see, the prices do vary between companies with breakdown giants the AA and RAC charging similar prices for cover.

And it's worth noting that these are the cheapest quotes offered by any of these companies (buying a similar policy via an agent or over the phone is likely to be significantly more expensive). They include introductory discounts that are only available online and assume you will renew each year by paying by annual recurring payment - although this of course can be declined next year!

Costs

When simply looking at roadside cover there isn't much in it, but as the cover increases, so does the disparity in cost with the AA and RAC charging significantly more than Green Flag.

The most interesting contender however is the lesser known Green Insurance, offering comprehensive cover from just £33.95 - nearly £75 cheaper than similar cover with the RAC. What's more, this even includes a hire car, should it not be possible to get your car fixed quickly.  But it is worth noting that this pricing is only available to cars which are five years or younger and the policy only allows 6 call outs per year.

But what if you wanted cover for yourself in any car?

Annual cost of individual cover - covers you in any vehicle (Internet prices)

Again, the AA and RAC's pricing is very similar, with Green Flag significantly cheaper (Green Insurance has not been included as it doesn't offer individual cover at the moment - although this may be introduced next year).

How can you save more?

Clearly you can end up spending quite a lot of money to provide yourself with comprehensive cover - and there are even extra levels of cover available if you're happy to pay for them.

But what if you just want to pay as little for your breakdown cover as possible?

Tesco Vouchers

You can currently pay for RAC cover with good old Tesco Clubcard vouchers.

Just £16.50 in vouchers will pay for Roadside assistance for 12 months (£28 normally) £31.50 in vouchers for Roadside and At Home (£77.63 normally), and £41.50 will cover Roadside, At Home and Recovery (£108.38 normally).

Cashback websites

Alternatively there are cashback websites.

Pay for your AA policy through Top Cashback and you could make up to £50 cashback, or £39 for an RAC policy. Buy through Quidco and you could make up to £40 on an RAC breakdown policy.

Just be warned - the amount of cashback you get is likely to depend on how much you spend on the policy. So the less you spend on the policy, the less cashback you get. Find out more about cashback websites.

Pay and Claim policies

Finally, you could choose a different type of breakdown service altogether.

Choose a "pay and claim" company and should you (or your spouse) break down you can choose to either find a garage locally yourself, or call the helpline where the company will find one for you. Either way your vehicle should be seen a similar time frame to the standard companies, and towed to a garage for further work if necessary.

But you've probably guessed that the big downside with this is that you'll need to pay the mechanic/garage and claim the money back. And while most will allow you to pay by credit or debit card this could obviously create cashflow issues if you're not compensated quickly enough.

But on the plus side, with so little in the way of overheads these companies can give a great service for rock bottom prices. Autoaid, for example charges just £37 a year for comprehensive, individual cover for you and your spouse/civil partner covering the vehicle you are in, plus any caravan or trailer being towed.

So which is best?

This is the million dollar question. All of the companies claim to have similar average call out times and all prioritise female drivers and drivers with children and all seem to offer a similar level of service.

In my opinion, Green Insurance offers fantastic value for money for straightforward comprehensive cover. But if you're good at remembering to claim expenses, Autoaid could offer a great, if slightly more complicated alternative. Let's just hope the service offered by all of the companies is as good as they claim!

Save money on car insurance too

Don't forget, there are many other ways to cut your car costs. The obvious one is shop around for car insurance using our brand new search engine here at lovemoney.com. You may also want to adopt this goal - Cut your car costs - which has heaps of cost-cutting tips, including how to adjust your driving technique to save money on fuel and help on how to Avoid expensive repair bills.

Good luck!

Find a cheaper car insurance quote

More: 5 ways to slash the cost of your car insurance |Young drivers - slash your premiums today