Cheap Breakdown Cover

You won’t find it on any price comparison sites like moneysupermarket.com, but you can actually pick up cheap car breakdown cover from both the AA and the RAC for around under £5 pounds just by following a couple of simple tricks.

Sound too good to be true?  Well in this case it isn’t, the reason roadside recovery policies can be picked up so cheaply is because you can use cash back sites to your advantage.

Cheap Car Breakdown Cover and Cash Back Sites

If you aren’t aware of what a cash back site is it is a website which receives commission from car insurance companies (amongst others) for sales they generate for them.  Most sites keep this commission which is what the price comparison sites do, however with cash back sites the commission is returned to their members.

The two main sites to use for car breakdown cover are Topcashback and Quidco.  They both work slightly differently, Topcashback return all of the money it receives in commission to its members and makes it money via the ads is displays on it’s site.  While Quidco charge you £5 to join but take this from your commissions, so you never actually pay it.

Cheap RAC Breakdown Cover

At the time of writing, if you register with Topcashback and buy the basic RAC Roadside Assistance cover for £28 through their link then you should receive back £23.46 cash back (we say should as you need to be aware of the watch outs which we list later in this article). This reduces the cost of your RAC insurance under £5, or £4.54 to be exact.

Topcashback where threatening to pull this offer at the time of the article. So an alternative is to join Quidco and take out a basic Roadside Assistance policy via their link. Quidco currently pay £20 cash back on the RAC breakdown policy, meaning the breakdown cover will cost you £8 via them.

Cheap AA Breakdown Cover

In a similar way to the RAC deal. cheap basic AA breakdown cover (know as AA Roadside Assistance), can be purchased via cash back sites. Topcashback currently pay £20.70 if you take out the basic AA roadside rescue policy, which normally costs £28. So with the cash back you can buy AA breakdown cover for £7.30.

Quidco currently pay £19 in cash back on the same policy, making them slightly more expensive. However, even then you can still buy AA car breakdown cover for £9.

Cheap Breakdown Cover – The Watch Outs

While there are absolutely no catches to receiving your cheap breakdown cover there are a few things you should be aware of and watch out for.

Firstly, cash back is not always guaranteed. While the vast majority of money earned by members of cash back sites is received there can be problems with tracking. If you are unlucky you may find that your sale doesn’t track and you have to pay full price. This is extremely rare but we feel you need to aware that there is a risk however slight attached to the process.

Secondly, watch out for renewals.   Both the AA and the RAC will automatically renew your car breakdown policy at full price once your first year is finished. This is how they make their money and it is why they can offer such big discounts in the first year.   The AA even boast that 95% of their members renew with them.

While this is no doubt partly due to a large number of satisfied customers, we are sure that this percentage is also elevated by people forgetting to cancel before renewal time. Don’t be one of them, make a note in your diary and revisit this site before your policy becomes due for renewal to make sure there aren’t any better deals available at that time.

A final thing to be aware of is that obviously the cheapest roadside assistance policy only provides you with basic cover.  All add ons like National Recovery, Home Start or European Breakdown Cover will obviously cost more.