My Breakdown Cover

GEM Motoring Assist Breakdown Cover Review

GEM Motoring Assist is a members' organisation with roots going back to 1932, running a breakdown service since 1978 — whose all-inclusive personal cover undercuts the AA and RAC's top bundles by roughly half on our checked prices. Its ratings are strong for its size: 4.6/5 on Trustpilot and 4.69/5 on Reviews.io, with recent reviewers praising fast dispatch, courteous drivers and proactive updates.

The trade-off is the model: GEM has no patrols of its own. Rescue is outsourced to Call Assist's network of roughly 425 independent contractors, GEM publishes no response-time commitment, and when the coordination fails the worst reviews describe multi-hour — in the most serious accounts, overnight — waits. Shortlist GEM for the price and the spec, but read the complaints section below first.

Deals from
£91/yr
Deals we compare
2
Founded
1932 (breakdown recovery service since 1978)
Patrol model
No own fleet — ~425 independent contractors dispatched via Call Assist

Current GEM Motoring Assist deals

The GEM Motoring Assist deals we track, with the provider's published prices — last checked 21 September 2026. We don't currently track any GEM Motoring Assist vehicle cover or European cover deals.

GEM Motoring Assist

Recovery RECLAIM

GEM Motoring Assist

4.6 Trustpilot · 1.7k reviews

  • Roadside assistance
  • National recovery
  • Home start
  • Onward travel

£91

per year

Get deal →
GEM Motoring Assist

Recovery EXTRA

GEM Motoring Assist

4.6 Trustpilot · 1.7k reviews

  • Roadside assistance
  • National recovery
  • Home start
  • Onward travel

£106

per year

Get deal →

GEM Motoring Assist breakdown cover plans explained

One bundle, not a menu

Where the AA and RAC sell roadside assistance and charge extra for everything else, GEM's Recovery EXTRA is all-inclusive at one price: home assistance (at home or within a quarter of a mile of it), roadside assistance beyond that, nationwide recovery, and onward travel — with unlimited callouts 24/7, including bank holidays and Christmas Day. Recovery goes to the nearest suitable garage that can repair the car the same working day, otherwise to one UK destination of your choice. Punctures, flat batteries, misfuelling, running out of fuel or charge, EV recovery and driver illness are all included.

The version we track is personal cover, which follows you as driver or passenger in any eligible vehicle — cars, motorbikes, small vans, motorhomes, towed caravans — at £106 a year for one person, £141 joint, and £186–£221 for family cover of up to four people at the same address. GEM also sells vehicle cover from £82.22, which we don't currently track, and advertises a 15% discount for students and NHS/healthcare staff.

Recovery RECLAIM: the pay-and-reclaim model, honestly

The cheaper deal we track — Recovery RECLAIM at £91 a year — works on an unusual reclaim model. You can call GEM for assistance in the normal way, or arrange your own recovery or garage and then claim the costs back from GEM afterwards. The £15 annual saving over Recovery EXTRA buys the same cover with more admin at the worst possible moment: you may be paying a recovery bill upfront and waiting on a claim rather than having it all handled for you. Reviewers do describe reimbursements being processed quickly, but go in with your eyes open — this suits people happy to front costs, not anyone who'd struggle to. One further caveat: GEM's current site copy is inconsistent about whether RECLAIM is still sold to new customers, so confirm what's actually on offer before you rely on the price.

The small print worth knowing

  • No instant cover: policies start at the earliest 24 hours after purchase (you can buy up to 3 months ahead) — if you're already broken down, GEM can't help.
  • The same fault within 28 days isn't covered unless you can prove a permanent professional repair.
  • Onward travel and overnight accommodation only apply more than 25 miles from home, capped at £200.
  • Keys locked in, lost or stolen: GEM pays callout and mileage only — locksmith fees, specialist equipment and storage are excluded.
  • Once your vehicle has been delivered to the nominated address, no further recovery is covered on that claim.
  • Vehicles must have a valid MOT and be taxed, insured and UK-registered — breaching this led to recovery charges of roughly £150–200 in complaints we read. Vans and motorhomes up to 3,500kg; towed caravans and trailers up to 7m with a standard 50mm coupling.

Behind the scenes, GEM Motoring Assist is a trading style of The Company of Veteran Motorists Limited, now part of the Call Assist Group, FCA-authorised for insurance distribution with policies underwritten by Collinson Insurance Services. Membership keeps the club feel: the quarterly Good Motoring magazine, a free motor legal helpline, and the GEM Road Safety Charity.

GEM Motoring Assist breakdown cover: pros and cons

Pros

  • Substantially cheaper than the AA and RAC for comparable all-inclusive personal cover - GEM's own dated like-for-like comparison (1 Sep 2026) shows £106 vs £225-237, and recent reviewers echo the value (/breakdown-cover/price-comparison; Trustpilot reviews read 2026-09-21)
  • Genuinely all-inclusive at one price: home start, roadside, nationwide recovery and onward travel are all standard with unlimited callouts - no add-on menu (/breakdown-cover)
  • Personal cover follows the member as driver OR passenger in any eligible vehicle - cars, motorbikes, small vans, motorhomes, towed caravans - with up to four household members on one policy (/breakdown-cover/personal-breakdown-cover)
  • Strong independent ratings for a small provider: Trustpilot 4.6/5 (1,690 reviews) and Reviews.io 4.69/5 (2,676 reviews), both read live 2026-09-21, plus a Defaqto 5 Star rated policy and a Which? Trusted Trader endorsement (provider-published)
  • Recent reviewers consistently describe fast dispatch, courteous drivers and good status updates, including app-based job logging that assigns an operator within minutes (Trustpilot reviews read 2026-09-21)
  • 90+ years of heritage (est. 1932) with a road-safety-charity ethos, and membership extras: quarterly Good Motoring magazine, free motor legal helpline, member discounts (/the-gem-story)
  • Accountability signal: GEM has replied to 100% of negative Trustpilot reviews, typically within 24 hours (Trustpilot transparency panel, read 2026-09-21)

Cons

  • No in-house patrol fleet - rescue is delivered by Call Assist's ~425 independent contractors, and the worst 1-2 star reviews describe multi-hour or even overnight waits, mostly at night and in rural areas, with slipping ETAs (/breakdown-cover/faqs; 1-2 star Trustpilot reviews read 2026-09-21)
  • No published response-time commitment or average - GEM only says times vary (/breakdown-cover/faqs)
  • No instant cover: policies start at the earliest 24 hours after purchase (/breakdown-cover/faqs)
  • Personal cover is UK-only; European cover is restricted to the Vehicle policy for cars/motorbikes 10 years old or under, or a third-party member deal (/breakdown-cover/faqs)
  • Exclusions that catch people out in practice: 28-day repeat-fault rule, £200 onward-travel cap (only 25+ miles from home), keys covered for callout/mileage only, no second recovery once delivered, and strict MOT/tax/insurance eligibility that has led to £150+ recovery charges (/breakdown-cover; Trustpilot replies and 1-2 star reviews)
  • Much smaller review base than the AA (~246k) or RAC (~216k) at 1,690 Trustpilot reviews, and Trustpilot flags that GEM hasn't recently invited reviews, so the unprompted sample may skew toward complaints (Trustpilot, read 2026-09-21)
  • Some reviewers report weak complaint resolution: small goodwill offers, unanswered follow-ups, ~25% renewal increases and friction cancelling auto-renewal (1-2 star Trustpilot reviews read 2026-09-21)

What GEM Motoring Assist customers say

Ratings below are third-party review scores and provider-published expert ratings, shown with their source and the date we checked them. They are other people's experiences, not ours — and star ratings on their own hide the pattern, so we also summarise what recent reviewers praise and complain about.

What recent reviewers praise

  • Speed when it goes well: many recent reviewers describe help being assigned within minutes of logging a job (often via the app) and recovery trucks arriving within the hour or sooner than the estimate - including motorway services, caravan and motorbike jobs.
  • People quality: consistent warmth toward both the UK call handlers and the local contractor drivers - described as friendly, patient, professional and reassuring, with several accounts of extra care for vulnerable passengers, classic cars and stressful situations.
  • Communication and follow-up: reviewers repeatedly mention proactive status calls/texts, pre-arrival calls, app tracking, and GEM checking back until the problem was resolved; claims/reimbursements are described as processed quickly.
  • Value and membership feel: long-standing members cite lower prices than AA/RAC, easy joining and renewal, the personal cover following them in any vehicle they drive or ride in, and extras like the quarterly magazine as reasons they stay and recommend GEM.

Where the complaints cluster

  • Long waits in the worst cases, concentrated at night and in rural areas: the 1-2 star reviews read describe waits of roughly 4 to 7 hours, and in the most serious accounts overnight or 12-22 hour ordeals on dual carriageways and the motorway hard shoulder, with ETAs repeatedly slipping an hour at a time.
  • Outsourced-control-room coordination failures: several reviewers only discover at breakdown that service is run by Call Assist and contractors; accounts include the wrong type of vehicle being dispatched, wrong location details passed to operators, recoveries cancelled or never re-booked, and customers being asked to find their own taxi or tyre fitter.
  • Unexpected charges and cover-limit disputes: extra recovery bills (roughly £150-200 in the reviews read) when a vehicle fell outside the terms (e.g. no current MOT/tax, a second recovery after the vehicle had already been delivered, onward legs), and surprise that lost/stolen keys only cover callout and mileage, not locksmith costs.
  • Aftercare and renewals: complaints described as slow or never followed up, goodwill offers felt token (£25-50 after multi-hour waits), a refund dispute within the 14-day cooling-off period, renewal prices jumping ~25%, and difficulty switching off auto-renewal.

How GEM Motoring Assist compares

Against the AA and RAC, the price gap is the story: on our checked deals (21 September 2026), GEM's all-inclusive Recovery EXTRA at £106 sits against £211.10 for the AA's full personal bundle and £219.45 for RAC Complete personal cover — and GEM's own dated like-for-like comparison says much the same, though that's the provider's marketing. What the big two charge double for is an employed patrol fleet that usually attempts a roadside fix; GEM dispatches independent contractors through Call Assist and publishes no response-time figure at all. Its review base is also a fraction of theirs — 1,690 Trustpilot reviews against the AA's roughly 246,000 — though Trustpilot notes GEM hasn't recently invited reviews and has replied to 100% of negative ones.

Against the budget providers, GEM isn't the cheapest way to buy personal cover: on the same dataset, Emergency Assist starts at £35.30, Rescuemycar.com at £46 and Eversure at £49.33. GEM's pitch is the spec — home start, national recovery and onward travel all standard rather than bolted on — plus the members'-club extras. Whether that's worth the difference depends on the features you'd actually add: our personal cover comparison shows every deal's features side by side, and our tips for cheaper breakdown cover help you trim the spec honestly.

On expert ratings, read the labels: the Defaqto 5-star rating and Which? Trusted Trader status are provider-published, and Trusted Trader is an endorsement scheme, not a Which? survey ranking. The one independently verifiable accolade is Auto Express's 2018 Driver Power survey, which ranked GEM the UK's number one breakdown recovery provider; the longer "top three for 12 years" streak GEM cites is a company claim we couldn't verify at source.

GEM Motoring Assist breakdown cover: FAQs

What is GEM's Recovery RECLAIM and how does it work?
Recovery RECLAIM is GEM's pay-and-reclaim policy: when you break down you can call GEM for assistance, or arrange your own recovery or garage and claim the costs back afterwards. You get the same all-inclusive personal cover for £15 a year less than Recovery EXTRA (£91 against £106 on our checked prices), but you may need to pay upfront and submit a claim rather than having everything handled invisibly. One caveat: GEM's own site copy is currently inconsistent about whether RECLAIM is still sold to new customers, so check what's on offer when you buy.
Who actually comes out when you break down with GEM?
Not a GEM patrol — GEM has no fleet of its own. Rescue is delivered by Call Assist Ltd, which dispatches roughly 425 approved local independent recovery operators across the UK. When that works, reviewers describe operators assigned within minutes and trucks arriving inside the hour; the worst reviews describe the coordination failing — wrong vehicle dispatched, wrong location passed on, recoveries never re-booked. Several reviewers say they only discovered the outsourced model at the roadside.
How long does GEM take to arrive?
GEM publishes no response-time figure or average — its FAQ says only that times vary with the time of day, day, season and weather, so we make no minutes claim either. Recent positive reviewers often describe help assigned within minutes and arriving within the hour, including on motorways. The 1–2 star reviews we read describe waits of roughly 4 to 7 hours — concentrated at night and in rural areas — and, in the most serious accounts, overnight ordeals with ETAs slipping an hour at a time.
Does GEM cover driving in Europe?
Not on the personal policies we track — Recovery EXTRA Personal is UK-only. European cover exists only as an upgrade to GEM's Vehicle cover, restricted to cars and motorcycles aged 10 years or under, or via a discounted third-party deal (PJ Hayman "Euro Plus") for members. If you regularly drive abroad, see our guide to European breakdown cover for providers that include it.
Is GEM cheaper than the AA or RAC?
For all-inclusive personal cover, substantially: on our checked prices (21 September 2026), GEM's Recovery EXTRA is £106 against £211.10 for the AA's full personal bundle and £219.45 for RAC Complete personal cover. GEM's own dated like-for-like comparison (1 September 2026) tells the same story, though that's the provider's marketing. What you give up is the employed patrol fleet — GEM sends contractors. Compare live prices to see the full picture on the day you buy.

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