Adventure Bike Rider

Hi all,

We're off to Europe first 2wks of September on our V-Strom DL1000, never rode in Europe before. Route is roughly going to be; Belguiim, Germany, Switzerland and return etc...

Any advice/info/experience/cost of who to use for 'break-down motorcycle cover please...?


Thanks!

Hi been to europe on the bike more times than I care to remember I use green flag
Single trip cover £55 but have never used so could not tell you
How good they are

Cheers

Dave

I've used these www.vehicle-rescue.com/european-breakdown-cover.php on every European trip I've done, never had to use them thankfully.

Get an annual policy that includes euro travel or can upgrade for the month that you go (this is what i do).

£55 for one trip is bloody expensive IMO.

I pay £8 per month for my any vehicle breakdown cover (you're covered not the vehicle) and I just phone up and pay £11 per month for 1 month when I'm going to use it in Europe, then knock it back down after.

A few I went to Normandy with got single trip cover for around £20.

Always...
Make sure it covers the capacity of the bike you're riding.
Make sure it covers repatriation.
Make sure it covers pillions if you have one.


Btw, I get mine through swinton but I'll be swapping mine after september as bikesure offered me one for £60 for the year.

I use RAC as i am a member I have never used them abroad but I have used them recently to bring the bike back from Scotland. It is well worth the annual fee cheers Spud

I use these for my car (bike is covered with my insurance) and they have been excellent - breakdown.insurancechoice.co.uk/compare.php

Just remember that they'll only recover your bike to the UK if it can't be fixed inside a reasonable timescale so if it needs £1k to fix it but a local shop has the parts that's it as far as the 'recovery' company is concerned. You'll get a loan car for the duration of your holiday but they wont recover the bike to be fixed by you at home. This is where you have to persuade the shop it gets recovered to that it's in their best interests to say they can't get the parts straight off the shelf.

I get my European cover as part of a package when I renew with Carole Nash and they're pretty efficient though you have to get yourself home then claim the money back and they only pay if they've authorised the cost in advance. They left me sitting waiting 4 hours for a Eurostar train because it was cheaper than getting an earlier one and short of paying the difference there was nothing I could do about it.

AndyB wrote:



Actually thats not entirely true, there is so much difference between policies, some will be better than others, i know cos i have shopped around and a lot of policies are very sketchy about repatriation.

Mine is with my bike insurance, on paper it seems to offer good cover.

Whatever you do make sure you read the policy conditions before you buy. Some are very strict about age of bike and service history etc. You can pay a lot of money out to some of the big companies and then find the cover worthless.