Admiral Breakdown Cover

Called Admiral for information about their European breakdown cover for a period of 1 month for my road trip through France and into Italy. What they promised sounded great....what we got was pathetic. On the way from Scotland to the Euro-tunnel heavy rain affected the car's electrics and damaged the indicator stalk. Admiral were put into action who in turn called out D and G assist. They turned up said a new part was need but there were non in stock and left stating we could not call them again or we would be charged! We continued without lights until France where we asked for assistance at a garage workshop. They made a small but necessary adjustment to the stalk which would allow us to travel through the Mont Blanc tunnel with headlights! The lads in France did the job with a smile and didn't charge a cent. You can work out the reason for my one star review.

Car wouldn’t start when 8 miles away from home 5pm on a Saturday. I suspected the battery had gone flat but I managed to jump start it and drive it home, and had hoped the issue had gone away but it had not. Called Admiral (redirected automatically to AA) due to again not being able to start my car. Unfortunately, I had roadside cover through admiral but not home cover - therefore due to me now being broken down on my driveway I wasn’t covered. AA guy on the phone told me to ring admiral and add home cover, wait 48 hrs then call AA again for help. Rang admiral on the Sunday morning, of course they can’t do that as the home breakdown cover would not cover an existing issue (makes total sense). Rang AA back, girl on the phone was useless and didn’t know anything so kept putting me on hold for ages. She told me to ring admiral to add home cover, I told her they’d already refused to do that. Got stuck in a loop of “go through admiral” “can’t, they redirect to you and wont add home cover”, “admiral say everything has to go through then so you have to ring them” and repeat. Asked her if someone from AA could just come out at my expense uncovered just to sort the car, as they advertise that they can help if you’re not already a member. Again, she just kept saying go through admiral, I assume because I have a policy they can’t touch my car. Absolutely ridiculous, they were no help and all the red tape was getting frustrating - I would have thought they could send someone out and just charge me an extortionate price for it but hey ho nothing is ever that simple clearly!!

Wish I’d have just not bothered trying to jumpstart and driving it home, or been dishonest and said my car was fine when ringing admiral to add home cover! (I wouldn’t but out of principle!) In the end I gave up and will just hope my car jump starts in the morning and I can get it to a garage myself!

Absolutely horrific experience.

Just abit of a back story, this evening 17/2/23 was suppose to be a mother's evening off turned out to be a stressful, panic filled evening because of admiral breakdown recovery.

The cars steering was hard and the car was making an straining noise at one point there was smoke coming out from the front of the bonnet. Called the breakdown service was told that someone will be with us 2 to 4 hrs this was at 7.30pm at 9.45 someone joined us and gave us a diagnosis of the problem the car steering wheel pump has been worn out and there was an oil leak. I had to drive the car out of the car park slowly and arrive at a stop at what was deemed to be a safe place.

I was told by the recovery agent that I have to call back the recovery line and let them know of the situation and he will do the same on his end in order to initiate the next step of the recovery process which is the tow truck service.

Upon calling and updating them of the problem, I was told that there for be another 1 to 2hr wait but someone should be with me for 12am. Then this person (forgot ask for his name) asked are you of this ethnic background to which I replied yes, awkwardly he just chuckled and said yeah it's going to be a while. Despite telling him I have babies waiting for me at home and me and my freind also a mother and that we were caught in between a police chase not to mention how late it was being in the middle of a busy road of drunks he showed no care repeated the same thing like a robot. Hanged up and then called again because this time they didn't provide a link where you can get updates for the recovery truck, the same person picked up and asked the same question rather annoyed I asked why does it matter what ethnic background I belong to? He goes because I'm just being transparent (whatever the heck that means) but the earliest time you are looking at is a 2 hrs wait and we dont provide a link for third party recovery. We had no other choice but to wait.

I called back after an hour just to check for updates .... this time it was someone named Jas, he said nothing has been put through about recovery tow truck. In utter shock and appauled, we had just waited an hour and the vehicle pick up wasn't even put through. He kindly put it through and made it priority which the first employer said he had done, and said it will be a 2hrs so now we are looking at 12.55am as the earliest arrival time.

1am came and went called again they added another 30 mins, in the meantime, there were drunk people breaking glass bottles, all the surrounding shops had closed we called back worried and terrified as ilford is known to be a crime ridden area called back again desperate for someone to actually listen to us but the employers from then on lacked to empathise or have any sorts of remorse to the fact that we were mothers stranded in the middle of a desolate area with drunkard men wandering about. One lady (an employer) even advised to go and wait inside the travelodge which was a 5 mins away even though i had told her there were a group of drunk men , because of course nothing can happen between these 5 mins whilst walking there. Not to mention the horrific murder happened in Iflord.

Attempted to call back again waited on the line for 43 mins no one picked up I was trying to find a private tow truck company affordable one at this point it was 3am and my sitter needed to get home as I was suppose to be home for 8pm not only I had to pay my sitter for extra 8 hours but also had to pay for the private call out service. Already a single mother things got even harder for me financially.

At 2.45am I called a private tow truck company who was charging £180 but assured us that he would be there in the next 15 mins desperate we went with this option as there was no call back and no one was picking up my calls. We arrived home at 3.15am and yes you guessed it still no call back. The waiting threshold time was between 2 to 4 hrs we had waited over 5 hours with no one picking up our call just left stranded with no empthay and care and this was a service that I received being a member that has been paying for breakdown recovery service for the past 2 and half years .

This has caused me and my freind so much distress spent triple the money in having to pay for our sitters, we were terrified for our lives thinking whether we would make it home to our children, and nearly every employer just tried to rush me off the phone as though my situation wasn't important at all. I paid for a recovery service through my insurance with admiral, and I will be contacting

To get my breakdown cover money back for the past 3 years that I have been with them, because they lacked to show any sympathy and as a service provider failed to do what they said they would do. And I no longer want to pay for a service that has no respect nor care for its members.

Why am I paying for a breakdown service every year, when in the end I had to pay extra for a service that they promised to provide but failed to do, furthermore, being a single mother I struggle to put food on the table all this has set me back for the next few months I will have to starve myself so my babies (2 and a 3 year old) can eat. It's not only affected me mentally but also financially and I don't have no family that are local to me, this is my 3rd year with admiral but this is the last year I will be with them. I will be demanding a refund for breakdown cover as not only they were unable to provide me with an efficient service but severely lacked any sorts of compassion towards the situation we had to go through and ultimately left hanging towards the early morning of the night.

I was out doing my deliveries out of town in the company van and couldn't accelerate over 50 then it gave up smell of burning nightmare!!! The clutch had died got my Doc's out and gave admiral van breakdown a call the call was answered quickly once I gave her my location she said I would get a txt and my ETA was 40mins I got the txt and yep help arrived on time

Many Thanks

Appalling. Stuck without petrol because several petrol stations had closed earlier on a Sunday. Finally called Admiral. I was told 1 and 3/4 wait time and then possibly another 3 hours national wait time on top of that!! Why? I opted to get an expensive taxi home, and then another expensive taxi at the crack of dawn the following day to sort it out. Didn't fancy being in the middle of nowhere waiting till 2.30 or 3am hoping someone was coming!!!

Newsflash Breakdown service is supposed to give peace of mind...!!!!

I was out in the cold for over 2 hours and still no one came. They said it would only be an hour. A kind gentleman helped me otherwise in scared to even think about what might have happened.

They are absolutely useless.

I called them again to let them know I didn't need then to come as someone had helped me and the guy on the phone was so unapologetic of the time I watered waiting for them.

I'm so disappointed in their service.

I had to wait 3 hours and 20 minutes to get the recovery van to sort out the flat battery. They said at the beginning that the help will be there in 60min then they said it will take another 15 min and so on and on and on. 

I had cover for recovery anywhere within 10 miles of the breakdown site. My home was around 20-25 miles away and I had to return home as I had no other option. I had to wait over an hour to be picked up and then had to pay £60 for the 12 or so miles extra on top of the distance already included. Completely useless unless you only use the vehicle for trips within 10 miles of home and pricey. Admiral haven’t stopped calling me today to try and obtain payment.

My vehicle had a breakdown in Reading city just 1 Mile away from my home.

I was made to wait on a road for almost 3 hours from 11 PM to 3 AM in the morning with no assistance

First time I called it took 10 Min for someone to pick and was prompted if I had taken cover before Sep 2019 or after (had no clue why) and then transferred to another line where I waited for 5 min to speak to an agent who can pick my complaint

I was made to wait in the road for 3 hours just to know that I had to fill 5 liters of Diesel to start my vehicle by a rescue team. :(

If the agent who picked my call had told me that is the issue I would have filled 5 more litters into my tank and went home.

Very poor support, Very poor communication and I was kept with no information for 2 hours and I had to call the support again to know that my rescue team was 20 min away at 2 AM in the morning :(

My car broke down on the M40, with my wife and two year old son in the vehicle. Despite being made a 'prioirity' we were forced to wait on a verge by the side of the motorway for four and a half hours in the pouring rain. The reason? Because someone in the call centre had sent the recovery driver to the M4 instead. Even when this mistake was realised they refused to send someone to pick us up and take us to safety. Incompetence of the very highest order. And their call centre staff seemed concerned only with resolving the complaint by offering a pitiful sum of £36 to waive the fee to take us home. Avoid at all costs.