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Here’s a look at the breakdown provider Allianz Assistance, a well-known name that’s fighting to improve its reputation and reach in the UK.
By analysing its services, prices, reviews, and performance, you’ll be able to see if Allianz Assistance is a brand worth using.
There are many different breakdown cover providers in the UK, all vying for your attention and custom. The array of options gives motorists a choice to help them find the right deal, although, with so many providers to choose from, it can sometimes be overwhelming and challenging to compare.
Plus, despite most breakdown providers being good, reputable, and reliable businesses that you can trust, some top brands underperform and have left previous customers frustrated. That’s why it’s important to do your research before committing to a breakdown cover provider.
Allianz is a large global business, offering financial services in almost every continent in the world. Around 86 million customers use Allianz products, most of which are in Germany.
The Allianz group offer a wide array of products and services, mainly in insurance and asset management. As part of their insurance offerings, customers can get breakdown cover, called Allianz Assistance.
It’s important to know that breakdown cover is not Allianz’s main priority, as they seem to focus more on implementing and delivering their other services. They will, of course, have a committed team that works solely on their breakdown cover service, but do be aware that unlike the AA, Green Flag, or many other competitors in the breakdown industry, providing roadside assistance isn’t their bread and butter.
By not having this committed focus as a business, the quality of this service may suffer as a result.
Allianz Assistance is a run-of-the-mill breakdown cover service, offering all you would expect from a provider with very few extra perks and quirks.
Allianz Assistance breaks down its service into three tiered levels: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Each level offers different products and services, with the Gold level of cover being a more comprehensive policy than their Bronze option.
In all of the policies, you get access to a dedicated car recovery service that’s available for use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means that no matter when your car breaks down, you’ll be able to call for help from Allianz Assistance.
Here’s a more in-depth look at the services that they offer:
Bronze – With bronze level cover, you get 24/7 roadside assistance as long as you’re more than a mile away from home. This minimum distance for eligibility is further than many other breakdown service providers, as you can usually access help if you’re more than 1/4 of a mile away from home.
Silver – With silver, you get the same roadside assistance service offered in the bronze tier, as well as breakdown assistance if your car cannot start at home. Known in the industry as home assist, you’ll be able to call an Allianz mechanic directly to your property to fix your car on your driveaway.
Gold – The gold level of cover offered by Allianz Assistance includes both the roadside assistance and home start services offered in the silver level, plus the ability to access either alternative transport, a hire car, or overnight accommodation if your broken down vehicle is out of action for a while.
When looking at the details of these different planned levels, no distinct mention of national recovery was offered in any of the plans. National recovery is a level of cover where your car can be towed to any UK location if broken down. The majority of providers offer this level of cover, so if Allianz doesn’t have it, it’s a big disadvantage when compared to the others.
The cost of Allianz Assistance will differ depending on not only the level of cover you get but also your own circumstances and information.
This is why prices aren’t freely displayed on their website, with you needing to get a quote for each level of service you’re interested in.
Despite not having a clear, concrete price to compare with other providers, it is likely that Allianz Assistance will be one of the more expensive options, regardless of the level of cover that you choose.
Allianz Assistance can be determined as expensive because it states on their website that cover starts at £9.99 a month. This equates to just under £120 a year, which is comparable to many of the top provider’s more premium cover options.
With that being the minimum that this cover can cost, their gold tier of cover will likely be much more than this £120 figure, meaning that Allianz is a breakdown cover provider that doesn’t provide good value for money.
It’s hard to determine the quality of Allianz Assistance through data, as there’s not a lot of information regarding how quickly roadside assistance arrives nor how often vehicles are successfully fixed on the roadside.
The fact that there is so little information and that there is a lack of quality assurances on their own website should ring a few alarm bells. Usually, the best breakdown cover providers will detail what to expect from their service to indicate to potential customers that they’re a brand you should trust. This is absent from Allianz Assistance.
When looking at past reviews of Allianz Assistance, this is where everything unravels for the brand. Currently, on Trustpilot, the leading aggregator of online reviews, the business has a rating of just 1.3 stars out of 5. This means that it has a bad rating, and for comparison’s sake, the majority of the top 6 best UK breakdown cover providers all have ratings above 4 out of 5. This can be used to demonstrate that Allianz Assistance isn’t a good breakdown cover provider to use.
This score of 1.3 stars is made up of just 86 reviews, meaning that there isn’t a huge sample size and that these reviews may not be a fair reflection of the brand. However, when you look at the voting statistics, out of those who have left a review, 93% gave the lowest score possible.
The biggest complaint against Allianz Assistance is that their communication channels appear nonexistent, with many customers detailing their struggles to get in touch with the business. There are multiple accounts of emails not being responded to, enormously long wait times for phone calls, and that long-standing issues haven’t been resolved.
From the accounts of users, Allianz Assistance operates more like an insurance company than a breakdown service, which makes sense given its other services. However, with that mentality, the business seems to be very uninclined to help you when you’re in crisis and instead will do what they can to keep your money, with these delay tactics previously mentioned being one of the key ways to reduce payouts.
All this indicates that Allianz Assistance isn’t a company that has its customers’ best interests in mind and is instead operating to make a profit and nothing else.
It’s hard to overlook the 1.3-star rating on Trustpilot that Allianz Assistance has acquired, and for many, that should be enough to put them off from using this company.
With many reviewers accusing the brand of being fraudulent and scammers, it’s a clear indication that even if Allianz has good intentions, they’re not providing a quality service to their customers.
Some people may ignore a bad review if the service offered is cheaper than the competitors, but this is just not the case with Allianz Assistance. In fact, its current price point makes it one of the more premium options on the market, although you’re unlikely to get a premium experience.
Plus, for the cost of the breakdown cover, you do not get your money’s worth, as there are a lot of services and add-ons that you can’t get with Allianz that are included with many other providers. With no word on national recovery on their website, it means that even with their gold standard cover, you’ll be missing out on a common and in-demand service.
With the business being extremely hard to contact, it demonstrates that customer service is almost nonexistent, which is not something that you want from a breakdown cover provider. When your car breaks down and you’re in crisis on the roads, you’ll want a provider that’s responsive and able to help you as quickly as they can. This appears to be something that Allianz Assistance is lacking.
It’s clear from these reviews that Allianz Assistance does not have the customer experience at heart and doesn’t seem concerned about providing a good service. As a result, it’s clear that Allianz Assistance should be a breakdown cover provider that you avoid at all costs because there are plenty of other, far superior options available, with many for a vastly lower price.