Breakdown Cover Articles

When and why car breakdown insurance became popular

Nobody knows who actually thought up the idea of car breakdown insurance, with both the AA and the RAC introducing the service almost a hundred years ago in the UK.

For many years these two Great British institutions were alone in the field, enjoying what was known as a friendly rivalry, and with so few cars on the road, and roads also few and far between, they did all they had to do to keep the wheels turning for the few tens of thousands of cars that were around before the Second World War.

In the post war years and especially during the boom years of the sixties the number of cars on UK roads began to grow dramatically in number and to the credit the AA and RAC did a great job of keeping pace of developments and providing a first class service. The number of emergency vehicles and even motor cycles that they had on the roads were significantly increased and both organisations also invested heavily in fleets of tow trucks that would haul cars that could not be repaired by the roadside to the nearest garage that was approved by either of these worthy organisations, and sometimes by both of them.

To make life easier and simpler for their members, both the AA and the RAC began to publish an annual year book that would not only include details of all their local service centres but also hotels, restaurants and cafes and of course maps of the entire British Isles.

Year after year the number of cars traversing the UK's highways and bye ways grew in number and as is the nature of things private companies began to set themselves up as opposition to the AA and RAC. The first of these were a company known as Green Flag, who obviously decided to go colour coded to compete with AA's bright yellow livery and the RAC's air force blue, But what really set Green Flag apart was that their policy was not to employ their own road side staff or buy their own tow trucks, but instead to establish a nationwide network of company trained independents.

The idea caught on, and pretty soon a handful of privately owned car breakdown insurance companies began to appear. Even more dramatic was that both the AA and RAC moved into private hands ending an era where the British driving scene grew dramatically and communication became easier in the event of a breakdown. Yet there was still no more welcoming a site than an AA or RAC roadside repairman coming over the hill to your rescue.

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