Broke down M6. Wait about an hour. Car was taken to local garage. Figures from most recovery firms say only small amount of customers need to be taken to local (to incident) garage - rather than recovered to home or destination - about 2%. However, I believe this to be much higher. Advice - question firms before taking cover about who chooses where vehicle is takn. National recovery is very expensive and they will avoid - even if you have paid for it.

I had the breakdown cover for nearly a year now and I never received a letter or a booklet with terms and conditions from them even if I've asked for from the the begging of cover. A few months ago, I called them to change my car details and the guy I spoke to treated me like I was a charity asking for money or called him to beg for food. I never used their service but when I was nearly to, on a Saturday night, I couldn't find any emergency number on my policy and i had to call somebody to have a look on their web site. Now, when the cover is coming to an end, of course, they send me a renewal letter with some terms and conditions but not all of them just a summary. For the first year, it was alright to pay around £45 but now they ask for £60 and, in my opinion, it's too much for the service they provide.

We used AXA to cover a motoring holiday in France with our caravan. On day 2 of our 3 week break, we broke down on the motorway. We should have known the type of service we were going to get when it took 20 minutes to speak to someone.Although they claim that they will provide you with a replacement vehicle if you car cannot be repaired so that you can continue with your holiday-that does not cover you if you have a caravan because of the lack of availability of cars with tow bars. Semmingly in early June- these were in high demand and the only one that they could trace would have cost us over a 1,000 euro ! think very carefully if you are a caravanner before taking out this cover. Here were the issues we found:- 1) Access to the call centre helpline poor 2) We were not able to speak with the same people so had to repeat our story usually twice or three times day- very stressful 3) Nobody really discussed options with us in detail- I had to prompt them all the time 4) Several occasions were given completely incorrect information about what could be provided as part of the cover 5) A general lack of efficiency and empathy from call centre staff. It was obvious that their resources were very overstretched and I did not feel confident that they were doing everything in a timely manner 6) We had to constantly chase for updates 7) Their negotation with the garage in France was poor even though they were French speakers. 8) They did not read notes in the booking-ie: after they had advised that our hire car would have to be returned at 11am- they called at 5pm and asked us to go and pay the garage which was 80kms away 9) The caravan came back badly damaged and will not be useable for the rest of the Summer while it is being repaired 10) The one good point - the car repatriation went smoothly