oorwullie said:
personally i think that if you have no idea how to fix your old van you shouldn't be driving it more than a few miles from home unless you have a very fat bank balance for the unexpected.............
Whilst I agree with this sentiment in principal you are forgetting that your insurance doesn't just cover your vehicle parts and labour.
For instance: I broke down in France a couple of years ago in my mates trusty Ford. We broke down on their equivalent of a bank holiday on the Friday, late afternoon.
Where we were was incredibly touristy and there was nowhere available to stay (fully booked).
My insurance got us a taxi to the nearest big city. The fare was over 200 euros. They checked us in to a hotel. No money came out of our pockets.
Because of the holiday period the car wasn't fixed until late Tuesday so we were given another taxi ride back to go collect it.
The problem with the car would have been something I could fix myself however there was nowhere open to get the parts, we were in the arse end of nowhere and we had nowhere to stay.
The insurance probably stumped up well over 1,000eur for our troubles.
We would have survived without but it would have been a s**t couple of days.
I paid nearly double what the guy I was travelling with would have bought in insurance and, quite frankly, I'm glad I did.
TL;DR? When travelling around Europe don't underestimate your insurance cover. It's not particularly expensive so don't scrimp too much.
