So, referring back to my original post, what was my decision?

My default attitude to insurance, generally, is to 'self-insure' if I think I can pay for a hit. Hence I buy insurance if I go abroad and I insure the house - and after a motorway tyre blow-out, I purchase breakdown insurance. I don't bother with health/dental/dog insurance etc.

The 'All-in' policy included 3 elements - breakdown cover, service plan, and extended warranty. Against my normal instincts, I have decided to cover all 3.

Our cars are insured with LV and I was simply able to add breakdown/recovery to the policy for the remainder of the insurance term. LV were very much 'on the ball' with that.

The 'service plan' was set up by my local Skoda dealer to continue when the old plan expired - when I looked at the cost, it wasn't very different to using my independent and it was broken down into monthly payments.

The real insurance 'gamble' was with the extended warranty - the thought of a fault with the infotainment screen makes me very twitchy. So I have also gone with the Skoda extended warranty.

Whilst we have a very good local independent who looks after my wife's B-max, my decision was influenced by the fact that our Skoda dealer has proved to be very good 'Vindis Skoda' in Bury St Edmunds - also honourably mentioned by Sanqhar in the 'petrol v diesel' thread.

On 04/11/2025 at 18:36, Bernardinho said:

My all in plan was due to run out next April and I was paying for it by monthly direct debit. I decided to get an 11 month old Karoq and rang Skoda to ask if I could terminate my all in plan and cancel my direct debit.

They said 'yes that's fine....and we will refund this years payments as you will not be having a service and mot on the all in plan.

£270 put in my account....which was nice!

I will definitely go for the all in plan when my Karoqs 3 yr warranty runs out.

I just cancelled one after only four months (not used it at all). The guy I was speaking to didn't offer to refund and when I asked he said they don't refund.

Bit of back and forth and eventually he said he'd make a goodwill payment. I was expecting 1 month or something, but he calculated the four monhtly payments - in other words, the whole amount I've paid.

I've immediately taken another All In plan at the Black Friday pricing.