The $75 receipt from the mobile jump in Southern Pines is still paper-clipped to the inside of my planner. I put it there on purpose in December, so every time I opened the planner in January I'd remember to deal with roadside assistance. This month I finally did.
Here's where I started: I thought we already had it on our auto policy. We didn't. I'd been confusing it with rental reimbursement, which we also don't have. So the question this month was whether to add roadside help to the policy we already pay for, or buy a membership with one of the motor clubs. I priced both.
Our agent quoted the roadside add-on at $14 a year for both vehicles, the CR-V and Wes's Silverado. That's not a typo. Fourteen dollars. It covers the basics: a tow to a nearby repair shop, jump-starts, a flat tire change using our spare, lockout help and a small delivery of gas if we run out.
The basic level of a motor club membership was $70 a year for one person, with a fee to add Wes. It covers roughly the same basic services, with a few extras: the membership follows the person rather than the car, so it works in any car you're riding in, and it comes with discounts at some hotels and attractions.
What I asked before deciding
I spend my days at the dental office arguing with insurance codes, so I've learned that the price is the easy part. The questions I asked our agent were these:
- How far will it tow us? On our policy it's to the nearest shop that can do the repair. We drive far enough on trips that I wanted to know.
- Does it cover us outside North Carolina? Yes, anywhere in the U.S.
- Does a roadside call count as a claim, or show up at renewal? This is the one I'd tell anybody to ask about their own policy. Our agent said roadside calls aren't counted against us on our policy. Some policies are handled differently, so check yours.
- How many calls a year? There's a limit, but it's more than we've ever needed.
- Does it matter who's driving? It goes with the insured cars, so if I'm in Mom's car and it dies, this doesn't help. That's where a membership is better.
What we kept
We added the $14 roadside coverage to the auto policy and passed on the $70 membership.
The deciding things for us were simple. We're almost always in one of our own two vehicles, so a membership that follows the person didn't buy us much. The hotel discounts sounded nice, but the places we stay are older motels, state park campsites and Darren's couch in Wilmington, so I didn't see us using them. And the math on the one time we needed help was easy: one $75 jump in Southern Pines would have paid for more than five years of the add-on.
If you drive a lot of other people's cars, have a teenager on the road, or would use the discounts, I can see the membership making more sense. We don't, and I'm not in the business of telling anybody which way to go. That's just what fit us.
A few things I did at the same time
Since I had the policy open, I saved the roadside phone number in both our phones and wrote it on the card in the glove box, next to Wes's pre-trip checklist. The night your battery dies is not the night to be digging through emails for a number.
I also printed a copy of the insurance card for each car, because a dead phone in a parking lot is a real possibility too.
And I left the jumper cables in the CR-V. Wes says the add-on is great, but in his experience the faster help is usually a kind stranger with a truck and cables of their own. He's been that stranger more times than I can count.
Total cost of this month's project: $14 for the year. I moved the old $75 receipt from my planner to the trip envelope as a reminder of why.
