possible new european cover

[pstewy]

Hi I'm doing a bit of market research for the AA whom I work for, I came up with the idea of having a motorcycle group european cover instead of the normal single mbr cover which at present costs about £40, working out quite dear for a group of 10 riders.
So I'm putting this out to you to see what type of price we will be willing to pay, going to keep it simple with say 3 groups

1-5 riders
5-10 riders
10-15 riders

if you would put some figures in on what you think I'll take all this back and next year we might have some proper cover in europe, I know half of my group who go every year never take out cover so i feel this could be a step forward for motorcyclist.
Thank you in advance

 

[RILLOM]

European cover for what exactly?

breakdown - health - accident ?

 

[pstewy]

Sorry breakdown cover

 

[WindyChuffer]

Personally I wouldn't be interested for two reasons:

a) I get cover from BMW as bike is under 2 years old.
b) I get European AA cover with my bank account.

So am covered twice. I can call both and see who gets to me first.

IMHO I think you'll struggle to make a business case for this product offering, but you never know.

On a commercial note, I do think you should subscribe to the site to use this forum for commercial market research. Its only £12 !

 

[Wapping]

Ah just the man I am looking for!

Here's a bit of market research for you.

Tell your dimwitted bosses that they have buggered up what was a perfectly good annual European breakdown policy. How?

Under the old policy you could take whatever vehicle you like, provided it was under 'X' years old. If the vehicle was older the customer could pay an additional premium. This was great if, like me, you have several bikes and two cars. I could simply decide which to take and all was well. Easy and effective.

Now some maniac has changed that. I now have to register one vehicle and, if on a whim I decide to take another (or go by car as it is lashing down at 04:00 AM) I have to call your call centre (subject to opening hours) and tell them the new vehicle.

What a stupid waste of time. Your call centre colleagues are moaning about it, too, which is hardly the best advertising the AA might expect.

I wrote to the AA to point all this out. All I received back was a moronic computer generated letter, explaining how the new system worked. I KNOW HOW IT WORKS YOU CRETINS - I WAS WRITING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW IT WORKS!

Be a good chap and sort it out.

Richard

PS If you are it seems prepared to consider insuring several groups of different bikes for several different blokes, it shouldn't be too difficult to treat me and my several bikes and two cars as a group of one.

I am a long term customer of AA (UK full breakdown Homestart etc, European breakdown, Worldwide PA & Travel for myself and daughter). I will be switching to another carrier for all three if you can't come up with something better in 2010.

PPS Welcome to UKGSer by the way. £12 buys you full site access and a wealth of knowledge on anything from haemorrhoids to tyres to styles of toaster. On the odd occasion we even chat about motorbikes and a lot about oil.

 

[squid]

Can you help out first by telling us what your cover costs for a motorbike with UK and Euro cover?

I've never used the AA as it usually seems expensive.

I have cover now for £59 and can swap it from car to bike at any point. Handy when you have three leisure vehicles.

Also, what is the age limits on cover for a bike /car.

I'm sure this is another reason I don't use the AA. One of my cars is old, its never broken down, is in excellent condition and if it ever did would be simple to fix yet you'd want loads of money to cover it if at all. There will be plenty of people with old bikes in a similar condition too yet get excluded cover.

 

[pstewy]

Hi thanks for all the replies firstly i only work for the AA as a breakdown driver I'm not involved in any insurance side, I came up with the idea to have a group breakdown cover as it was costing me £40 to cover a single bike and there were 9 of us going on the trip so 9 x £40= £360, would of been cheaper to hire a van and get the broken down bike back, as the trip organiser if I could of got cover for around say £200 i could have put this on top of the price so individually it would have only cost us £22, I agree with some of your comments yes you did get free european cover but as I remember it was only for 72 hrs, the AA like many other british companies is firstly a business not the club which it once was.
would still be interested in any more comments
Paul

 

[Wapping]

Hi Paul,

Your maths is about right.... after a while it is cheaper to self-insure via hiring a van.

Would be obliged if you could pass my comment above up the chain.

Your idea would probably work best if the cover was sold through the companies, like MCI, who do organised trips. They have multiple trips, for multiple bikes, often involving virgin / inexperienced / our people who just want to have everything done for them. Look at the Eurotunnel website, it has the easy 'Buy your insurance here' click option. It is mass selling to a volume market. Ad-hoc groupes of mates on trips won't generate sufficient volume. I would always buy my own as I would never be quite sure what my 'best mate' had bought.... see lots of threads on the confusion insurance of all sorts causes....and the problems when someone buys the wrong policy.

A combined personal accident / medical / breakdown policy would be the thing to market and sell. I would buy one (depending on price / terms) if it had a single annual premium and a single contact number. That the single contact number fed off into different areas within the AA that would not bother me too much. I wouldn't mind if the breakdown section was 'Europe' only and the personal accident / medical section worldwide (as now, with the separate policies).

 

[pstewy]

Hi will be passing on all your comments some very interesting points coming up don't know how far up the chain they'll get but I will pass them on
Paul

 

[Ross Dean]

What I need is world-wide cover available in geographically defined blocks. For example, so much for Europe, an additional premium for North Africa, and so on up to full world wide cover - call it Adventure Riding Cover, Long Distance Travel Cover or some such thing. That would be a genuine insurance innovation and useful to the type of rider who frequents this forum ... in fact why not have a cover that applies to all "adventure" vehicles with premiums to suite the specific vehicle?

Please, just make international insurance easy!

 

[thauma]

A single policy to cover health, repatriation and bike cover (as already mentioned) would be ideal. OK sell the policies separately so eveyone has a choice, but also offer them as a bundle - one policy fits all your needs.

If anything goes wrong, you don't want to have to deal with multiple policies. The AA used to do this, and now they are spearate policies - which is as far as I'm concerned a retrograde step, more paperwork to take with you and more complex for anyone else to sort out on your behalf - if you are incapacitated.......... I know this is worst case, but that is when it is most needed.

 

[Wapping]

What I need is world-wide cover available in geographically defined blocks. For example, so much for Europe, an additional premium for North Africa, and so on up to full world wide cover - call it Adventure Riding Cover, Long Distance Travel Cover or some such thing. That would be a genuine insurance innovation and useful to the type of rider who frequents this forum ... in fact why not have a cover that applies to all "adventure" vehicles with premiums to suite the specific vehicle?

Please, just make international insurance easy!

Worlwide cover for what?

If it's medical you can buy it already, either 'whole world' or on 'blocks'.

For breakdown it ain't going to work. Why? Vast tracts of the world do not have a recognised road system and / or a motor garage on every street corner, with the local equivalent of Joe the Van, the AA man. You want to go adventuring with a back-up? Contact E McG.

For Motor (liability or own damage) it ain't going to work. Why? Insurers have to be licensed to write Motor in a country. Very few are. Maybe AIG could but they have more weighty matters to consider at the moment.

One last reason it ain't going to work. Lack of demand. The average 'traveller' stays in the UK or Europe where all the covers you mention are available, often under a single or simple multi-policies.

 

[Wapping]

Hi will be passing on all your comments some very interesting points coming up don't know how far up the chain they'll get but I will pass them on
Paul

Thank you, Paul.

 

[Ross Dean]

Worlwide cover for what? ...

Yes ... well... there is stating the current situation and there is looking at changing it.

 

[pstewy]

UPDATE,

Thanks to everybody who put forward some ideas put everything to the powers that be but got a luke warm response unfortunately the number of motorcycles going abroad just isn't high enough to warrant the investment in a new product. its not dead and buried yet as its on the agenda in the autumn when all new products are given the green light.
Fao Wapping ask about your problem the system was changed because as always a few people were abusing the system taking out 1 policy and going abroad with loads of people in cars still happens now with normal policies, also the problem you had early in the morning she said the AA would have (should have) covered you but would you take that chance.
The idea of 1 european policy covering everything is in the pipe line and should be released in some form soon.
Not been on here for a while as my hard drive blow up (or I blow it up messing about)
so thanks again and see you soon
Paul

 

[Wapping]

Paul

Thanks for the update.

On hol's will reply on return.