I can't even begin to describe how appalled I am by the service delivered by Admiral. I myself am no longer insured with Admiral as of earlier this year after they tried to up my insurance on renewal by £350 per annum for absolutely no reason, and instead I chose to go elsewhere for the exact same cover for with a saving of just under £900. Shocking Prices. However yesterday, on the 17th of December, four friends and I planned to travel from Newcastle to Glasgow for the day and decided to take just one car. Unfortunately, as mine is the smaller car, we used my friend's who is insured by Admiral. Two hours into our journey and on the homestretch to Glasgow the car began to judder doing 70mph. We slowed to just under 60, moved into the left lane in the hope that the poor weather conditions and speed had caused the problem, but that it had only been temporary. A minute later the car began to judder again and felt as though it was going to come to a complete stop, the check engine light came on, forcing us to pull onto the hard shoulder, hazards on. So, on an anonymous stretch of the M6, the 5 of us got out of the car, clambered over the hip-high "guard barrier" and stood in the mud sandwiched between a busy motorway and a wooden fence that stood between us and a 10ft drop. Scotland. It was cold, it was raining and the trucks and lorries driving past made our car shake with their speed. We were only a short walk to the nearest SOS phone so the driver and my partner headed down to report our location. The operator asked the driver what had happened, who she was insured with and importantly, who was in the car. At this point I feel I should mention that I am 38 weeks pregnant. He said he would call Admiral on her behalf as between the 5 of us, not one had a single bar of phone service, and get back to her on the SOS phone. Five minutes later, the phone rang and the operator advised the driver that he had contacted Admiral and made them fully aware of the situation and that they would send roadside assistance. This would normally be guaranteed to arrive within the hour, however as I was heavily pregnant and classed as a vulnerable adult, the job would be held as high priority and the police were also being sent to check on us. This call ended at 11:35 So we stood in the mud, with the rain only getting worse and waited. We hadn't planned to be standing outside and obviously weren't properly dressed for the occasion. My coat and scarf were drenched, my partner's Barbour might as well have been made out of water the amount it absorbed and everyone continued to get wetter, colder and more miserable as we waited, and waited, and waited. By 12:20 everyone was pretty annoyed and there was no sign of any help coming at all. Five minutes later a police car pulled up behind us and asked to speak to the driver. They had been sent from Glasgow and were outraged that despite it being nearly an hours drive, they had arrived before the roadside assistance had, despite there being a garage on the next exit, less that 10 minutes down the road. One of the officers came over to check that I was alright, by this point I was very thankful to have found a packet of tissues in my coat pocket as I was freezing with my hair and clothes soaked through and sniffing away, I probably looked a pretty sorry sight. He told us to get back in the car to try and dry off and started indicating traffic to enter the middle lane so as not to pass so close to us. They took full incident details and started radioing back to the station to ask if there were any other police cars in the area that could come and take us to safety. I wasn't in the police car but our driver said that they were both livid at one point telling the radio operator, "we HAVE to be able to do something... this is a joke, this woman should NOT be out here." Fifteen minutes after the police arrival, a recovery vehicle pulled in in front of us and the driver got out to speak to the officers by the side of the car who demanded to know why the hell it had taken him over an hour to get to the scene from a garage down the road and why they had arrived first having travelled down from Glasgow City Centre. The driver told them that they'd have to speak to his boss; he was just there to do a job. Things were looking up however, we weren't in the rain anymore and our clothing was very slowly changing from soaking and ice cold to damp and uncomfortable. However, the garage hadn't sent a mechanic to check the car, just a recovery van driver to take us off the motorway. So we climbed into the recovery van and waited the further fifteen minutes it took him to hitch the car up onto the back and finally, away we went. The drive back to the garage took a grand total of 8 minutes. In the waiting room, only enough time had passed for us to each use the loo and almost finish a cup of tea when a mechanic advised us that the car was absolutely fine. He had removed the coil, given it a wipe clean and taken the car for a test drive, but the engine itself showed no damage. He said if the problem happened again, pull over for 10 minutes and then set off again, but everything should be okay, and sent us on our way. We got back in the car to finish our journey just before 13:00. When we finally got close enough to civilization to get some signal, the driver found that she had a missed call from Admiral at 12:10 to say they had gotten hold of a garage and that someone was on their way. So to recap, it took almost 40 minutes for Admiral to actually get in touch with someone, and then a further a half an hour for them to actually show up. The garage didn’t send road side assistance but instead a recovery vehicle with a driver who couldn't do anything to help. Not my idea of a priority. Not only is this over the hour they normally promise anyway, but they were perfectly content to leave five people, including a 38 week pregnant woman standing in the wind and rain for over an hour on the side of a very busy motorway. I am now full to the brim with cold and everything aches. I don't even know what else to say about the situation. It was an absolutely unacceptable response for a company that charges outrageous prices. I will NEVER return to Admiral as a customer and the driver of yesterday's events will be changing insurer at the earliest possible date. The police did advise us to raise a formal complaint, although none of us were very sure what good it would do. Disgusted doesn’t even begin to cover it.