You're sat on a Continental curbside, the car's a wreck, the caravan is only slightly better. What started out as a foreign family holiday has rapidly turned into nightmare and you're facing a bill of several thousand pounds to get home. This may sound too awful to contemplate and yet, if you head overseas without adequate protection, you may find yourself in this situation.
According to Bill Smith, manager of emergency services at the Caravan Club, the cost of repatriating an outfit to the UK can be extortionate: "We once had to pay out more than £2500 just to get a family's badly damaged van from the autobahn to a local garage," he said. And this comes before any addition of retrieval and shipping back to the UK. Luckily this family had the foresight to get appropriate cover, saving themselves thousands of pounds' expense.

Keeping your fingers crossed may do the trick nine times out of ten, but have you considered that just one fateful sojourn onto a foreign hard shoulder may deprive you of your holiday budget for the next couple of years. Aside from personal injury and the usual horror scenarios, the prospect of being stranded on some distant autobahn with a damaged car and caravan is not one to ignore. Mr Smith explains: "The first thing that needs to be borne in mind is that a car and caravan outfit cannot be repatriated on an ordinary car transporter. If a large, expensive flat bed is used, then it is possible to bring back both at once. This makes it much more expensive than if we were only dealing with cars."
Using figures from insurer Tourer Select and Mondial, we calculated an average cost for the rescue of a Land Rover Discovery with Swift Challenger 530, from the French Riviera. Starting with the initial roadside retrieval of £100, there's then the cost of storage at £15 per day for, say, five days. Add to this a moderate estimate of £1300 for repatriation and the cost of four family air fares, at £100 each, and the bill is heading towards £2000.
The AA gave us an estimation of the costs in repatriating from further afield. Using representative locations in Rome, Malaga and central Scandinavia, the figures hovered around an eye-watering £3000, just for getting the caravan home. With this figure returning the traveller only as far as London, you can then add on the cost of any further journeys.

POLICIES BROKEN DOWN
While the usual level of attention should be paid to the small print, there also needs to be a clear understanding between you and your chosen recovery service as to what it is that you are towing and what service you expect. The age, weight and the dimensions of your caravan could make all the difference between being swiftly recovered, repaired and repatriated, or being left to rust at the roadside.
You need to ascertain very carefully what your priorities are. If necessary, would your car or caravan be replaced, even abroad? Again, the tow vehicle will usually take precedence, with vehicle-only recovery companies being loath to act as caravan repairers. If your towcar is replaced, there may be no guarantee of the supplied vehicle being equipped with a towbar. These are just some of the scenarios which need to be considered. Both the AA and RAC offer good policies to caravanners abroad. The AA's Five-Star annual cover includes caravans in the cost, so no extra fee is applicable. It is able to repatriate a car and caravan back to the UK, although the unit is liable to length restrictions of 7m. Interestingly, and fortunately for serious Continental caravanners with lengthy vans, there's a greater length allowance when recovering from the Continent. In the UK, when recovering a caravan on a low-loader, length is restricted to 5.49m as opposed to 7m.
In most cases, the AA will attempt to mend the outfit at the roadside but if this is unsuccessful, repatriation is an option, as is the replacement of your tow car. All effort will be made to find a car with a towbar, although this is not guaranteed. Provision will be made to put you up in suitable accommodation: a hotel rather than a replacement caravan. The AA cannot guarantee a response time on the Continent, but it does promise to provide either a replacement vehicle or accommodation if problems have not been rectified after eight hours.
The RAC, meanwhile, will cover your caravan for an extra £31.50, on top of your car premium. Its policy gives equal importance to both car and van, and guarantees replacement of either, if required. It's also happy to repair or rescue a broken or damaged van, irrespective of the condition of the car. There are some restrictions on the dimension of the unit (see overleaf).

COVER FOR CARAVANNERS
Some packages are designed specially with caravannners in mind, such as the Caravan Club's Red Pennant service. A comprehensive brochure answers most of the questions you'll want to ask, although as ever, the policy itself is the only place to find the small print. Caravans of any vintage are covered. However, owners of cars over ten years old will need to pay a premium, dependent on the age of their vehicle.
Alternatively, The Camping and Caravanning Club runs its Carefree Travel Service, in association with Europ Assistance. The priority with both the Carefree and Red Pennant schemes is the 'unit', or car plus caravan. You would need to request specifically 'motoring only' if you did not want the caravan included.
Carefree aims to be with you within an hour, wherever you are, but requests that you pay a supplement for the cover of vehicles between ten and 20 years old. There is a strict upper weight limit, of 3500kg, for combined car and caravan, which could exclude those with a heavy tow vehicle and large well-equipped caravan. There are also some independent companies who see the potential of keeping in with the caravanning fraternity.
EuroRescue (with its EuroRescue and EuroRescue Plus schemes) will handle your caravan in the event of a breakdown, with a £30 charge on top of your standard breakdown cover. It does state, however, that the caravan needs to be attached to the vehicle at the time of breakdown in order to be covered. It will then attempt to provide you with a replacement vehicle with towbar but will not provide a replacement caravan, just accommodation costs. The company aims to be with you within an hour and can cope with vans up to 7m long.
International Breakdown prides itself on its free cover for caravans, with no fee on top of the European car recovery service (or standards service in UK). It will repatriate a car and caravan, if appropriate, but it will try to get vehicles working at the roadside first. It estimates an hour's response time, even abroad, but it does state that there can be a problem finding a replacement car with a towbar.
Sometimes though, breakdown assistance is not needed as your van may be covered if you have a new car. To varying degrees, VW, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Vauxhall, Ford, Peugeot and Honda will all take care of your caravan as well as your car in the event of a Continental breakdown. VW, Audi and BMW state that you would need to inform them that you are towing a van, and possibly pay extra. Before doubling up on your recovery service/insurance/warranty premiums, check your warranty as to what is thrown in with your new car.
However, you don't want to leave yourself short. It's a matter of weighing up what your insurance offers, and checking if it is as watertight and comprehensive as the leading recovery companies. It might pay to find out exactly who it is your insurance company uses for roadside maintenance and retrieval. The Association of British Insurers points out that many people are unaware that car insurance rarely covers the vehicle in the event of a breakdown. It is only intended to cover in the event of an accident. At least with both insurance and breakdown policies, you are completely covered. In the event of an accident, insurance takes care of third party claims, emergency services and medical treatment or specialist vehicle recovery, but may not enable you to continue your holiday with a new car and caravan, or send your tourer back home.
Happily, there are some experienced caravan insurers who seem to have taken everything into account. Our advice is to speak to your local dealers and see what they offer. You may prefer dealing with a local company which can take you through the small print and answer your questions in person.
There are also many larger insurers who specialise in caravan insurance and recovery, such as Caravan Guard, Complete Insurance Services or Tourer Select. You may find their policies so well thought out that you'll decide you don't need to make your own recovery arrangements. With all the options available, a little research will mean that there is no reason to ever find yourself stranded, miserable and out of pocket.