Nationwide Automobile Cover

[Avocet]

Has anyone ever made a claim on an extended warranty provided by these people? We were persuaded to take out a 3 year policy with them when we bought my wife's car but on reading the small print (wish I'd done it in the shop!) I found that the car had to be serviced by a "bona-fide VAT-registered garage". This was a bit of a problem as all our servicing for years had been done by an independent mechanic who we trusted implicitly (and was cheap) but was NOT VAT-registered. We wrote to them asking permission to contine the current relationship and got a snotty letter back effectively telling us to read our policy. (which is why we wrote to them if the first place...)

I now have to decide whether to invalidate their warranty or whether to go elsewhere for the servicing. If anyone has had experience of a claim I'd be interested to know if they're any good or whether I should just write off the whole lot and stick with our "man". failing that, I'm off to find the cheapest back-street VAT registered cowboy outfit I can (after all, the terms don't say "franchised dealer"...)