How Blue Car Rental's roadside assistance works in Iceland

Magnús Jóhann Björnsson
12 Nov. 2025

Renting a car gives you the freedom to follow Iceland's coastline, glaciers and waterfalls on your own schedule, but that freedom depends on knowing what happens if something interrupts the drive, a flat tyre on a gravel road, a dead battery after a long day of daylight, or a car that won't move out of soft sand.

In short: Blue Car Rental provides a Roadside Assistance Waiver that covers towing, on-site help with flat tyres, dead batteries, lockouts, and extraction from snow, mud or sand, with 24/7 local support anywhere in Iceland. This is separate from insurance, roadside assistance gets your trip moving again, while insurance (including the Liability Waiver) protects you from the cost of vehicle damage.

What's included with every Blue Car Rental booking

Every Blue Car Rental booking already includes CDW, SCDW, Gravel Protection, Theft Protection, and Third-Party Liability as standard, you don't need to add these separately. This baseline coverage handles common risks like gravel chips to paint or a broken windshield, and it applies from the moment you drive off the lot.

What standard coverage does not include is a repair to tyres, underbody, wind-related door damage, or water damage, those fall under the optional Liability Waiver (LW), covered below. Understanding this distinction matters, because it's the difference between "this is already handled" and "this needs an add-on." You can see the full breakdown of what's bundled as standard on the insurance page.

What the Roadside Assistance Waiver adds

The Roadside Assistance Waiver is a service-based add-on, not a damage waiver, it's about getting you and the car moving again, not about who pays for repairs. With it, Blue Car Rental provides:

• Towing anywhere in Iceland if the car cannot be driven
• On-site help for flat tyres, dead batteries, or lockouts
• Retrieval if the car gets stuck in snow, mud, or sand
• 24/7 support through local staff, not an overseas call centre

This is useful precisely because Iceland's road network includes long stretches with limited traffic, parts of the Westfjords, the South Coast beyond Vík, and most of the highland F-roads. A breakdown in these areas can mean a long wait without prior arrangement for assistance, so save the rental company's emergency contact number before setting out on remote routes.

Roadside assistance vs insurance: what each one actually covers

Roadside assistance and insurance solve two different problems, and travellers often assume one covers the other. Roadside assistance handles the service of getting your trip moving again; insurance and the Liability Waiver handle the cost of damage to the vehicle. The table below shows how a few common situations are actually covered.

Note: legal river crossings are covered under the Liability Waiver, the exclusion above applies only to illegal river crossings or off-road driving, not to river crossings in general.

The takeaway: tyre cover specifically sits under the Liability Waiver, not the standard package, so if a sharp rock damages a tyre beyond a simple puncture, the Roadside Assistance Waiver gets you towed or serviced, but the LW is what covers the cost of the tyre itself.

When roadside assistance actually gets used

Most call-outs in Iceland are for ordinary, low-drama reasons rather than dramatic breakdowns. In practice, travellers most often use roadside support for:

• A flat tyre from gravel or a pothole on a rural route
• A car door caught and dented by strong wind, common on the South Coast and in the Westfjords
• Getting stuck in snow or soft ground, especially in spring or autumn
• A flat battery after leaving lights on during Iceland's long summer daylight hours
• Locking keys inside the car, which happens more often than travellers expect on cold or windy days

None of these are emergencies in the dramatic sense, but without assistance arranged in advance, each one can turn into a costly delay, particularly outside the Reykjavík area.

Does a foreign auto club membership like AAA work in Iceland?

No. Memberships such as AAA (US), the AA or RAC (UK), or similar clubs in Europe, Canada and Australia are not valid for roadside assistance in Iceland, most are tied to national networks, and reciprocal arrangements abroad rarely cover a rental car in Iceland, so do not count on them. Roadside cover in Iceland comes either through your rental company's waiver, a standalone travel insurance policy that includes it, or Iceland's general emergency services (112) for genuine emergencies. If you're planning a self-drive trip, it's worth arranging cover through the rental company itself rather than assuming an existing membership will apply.

F-roads, river crossings, and what's not covered

Coverage in the highlands and on F-roads follows the same structure as elsewhere, but the stakes are higher because help is further away and legality matters. The Liability Waiver covers water damage including legal river crossings, but nothing covers damage from illegal river crossings or driving off marked roads, this includes off-road detours taken to get a photo or avoid a puddle.

If you're unsure whether a crossing is safe or legal, the right move is to turn around, not attempt it. Conditions on F-roads change through the season, and opening dates vary year to year, so check umferdin.is (Vegagerðin) and safetravel.is before setting out, and consider joining a guided or experienced operator for well-known highland river crossings rather than driving them independently. For more on which vehicle class actually suits highland routes, see this guide to F-roads in Iceland, and on the legal side, off-road driving in Iceland explains why it's prohibited and enforced.

Do other Iceland rental companies offer roadside assistance?

Most established rental companies operating in Iceland offer some form of roadside support, but what's included, how it's priced, and whether it's bundled or optional varies by company and by rental agreement. Some include basic call-out support as standard; others sell it as a daily add-on similar to Blue Car Rental's waiver. Before comparing prices between companies, check exactly what a quoted roadside assistance fee includes, towing distance limits, call-out fees, and whether tyre or battery issues are covered as a service call or as a chargeable repair all differ between operators.

What roadside assistance and cover cost, in context

Blue's own worked examples put towing from 100 km outside Reykjavík at 35,000 to 50,000 ISK and an F-road rescue at 50,000 to 70,000 ISK without the waiver, according to the Roadside Assistance Waiver page (last checked September 2026). The Roadside Assistance Waiver has been priced at roughly 1,300 ISK per day. Without additional cover, the self-risk (deductible) stated on your rental agreement applies to the repair cost. These figures are illustrative and vary with season, vehicle class and rental terms, so confirm current pricing directly with Blue Car Rental at the time of booking rather than relying on past figures. For a wider view of how insurance and pricing fit together, see car rental pricing, deposits and insurance.

Planning ahead makes the difference

None of this needs to complicate your trip. Choosing a vehicle suited to your route and season, checking umferdin.is before driving unfamiliar stretches, understanding what's already included versus what's optional, and using online check-in to skip counter queues at Keflavík are the practical steps that make a self-drive trip in Iceland straightforward. If gravel roads are a big part of your route, it's also worth reading about gravel protection specifically, since it's one of the most common damage types travellers encounter outside city driving.