Open and direct (formerly equity) 40% increase in car insurance!!!

FUNKYDADDIO

Anyone with the above company? They have increased my wifes premium by 50 % apparently due to the bad winter and the amount of claims in relation to this, the best they could do when asked was a £30 (40% increase) cash back which you have to wait months for.. Anyone heard of this? sounds crazy to me.....also any reccs for a good local car insurance co. ? Cheers :j

dmxdave

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/239406

totallybroke_2

my partner has his insurance with open and direct, renewed in march and his went down he also got the £30 cashback, lovely wee suprise! the rise in your wifes insurance might be something to do with the new laws that come into affect later in the year about equality in insurance, basically a woman cant get cheaper insurance just cos shes a woman lol

x12yhp

All the insurers seem to be variable. I went with O&D two years ago since they matched my renewal elsewhere and I always like to get my money into local companies... then the next year they raised it by 150% and told me that the first year was an introductory price and subsequent years would not follow suit. Most annoying and, to my mind a bit of a con. They told me pork pies at the time of starting business with them - I would never have swapped to them if I knew I would save £30 on year one but lose over £1k on year two! So there are some funny business models because nobody did well out of that whole affair!

Witless

FUNKYDADDIO wrote: »

....also any reccs for a good local car insurance co. ? Cheers :j

Hughes & Co - been with them 6 years now; always the cheapest on 'like for like' policies.
(There are cheaper - but not the same cover / add ons etc)

gawa75

I've never been with Hughes but really wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now if they think we enjoy watching the DIRE adverts with those two unfunny camachees.

Bad judgement on their part = no money from me.

thetope

have a go at AXA ni https://www.axani.co.uk - neither Hughes nor Open and Direct who I've previously been insured with in the past couple of years could come close to their price for me this year, without having to resort to "cashback" schemes and some sort of excess insurance (i.e. set your excess high - £600, but they added an excess insurance which meant that this was refunded in the event of an accident).

toofy

My renewal was the same, went from £280 last year, rocketing to £460 this year..ended up with a company from Coleraine (ITS4WOMEN) for £320...when I compared with Open & Direct, they said Equity Red Star were withdrawing from Northern Ireland, and Axa was their next best quotation at £460...they wouldn't budge for a few days then went to £425 with cashback, still wasn't a comparable offer, so voted with my feet...hth...

Parisien

gawa75 wrote: »

I've never been with Hughes but really wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now if they think we enjoy watching the DIRE adverts with those two unfunny camachees.

Bad judgement on their part = no money from me.

Yeah...typical lacking in imagination, pathetic copycatting.....so bad it makes me wince......and therefore will always slate them.....NOT memorize them in any good way, how foolish are they!

drew2k9

totallybroke wrote: »

the rise in your wifes insurance might be something to do with the new laws that come into affect later in the year about equality in insurance, basically a woman cant get cheaper insurance just cos shes a woman lol

as far as i am aware, these laws don't come into force until 2012, but a lot of companies are bringing them in early, so yeah that could be the case.

open and direct are nothing to do with the price of your insurance, open and direct are a brokers. its the insurers who have all put their prices. our prices at the underwriters i work for have gone up three times this year alone due to re assessing profit margins etc. the claims in the country are through the roof, and until the compensation seekers wise up and realise that lying to get a few grand for a wee "sore neck" is a bad idea, the prices will continue to go up.

i would get used to it now, i can see everyones going up in the years to come, and just keep going up, it will probably never come down!

Noelsagan

gawa75 wrote: »

I've never been with Hughes but really wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now if they think we enjoy watching the DIRE adverts with those two unfunny camachees.

Bad judgement on their part = no money from me.

Parisien wrote: »

Yeah...typical lacking in imagination, pathetic copycatting.....so bad it makes me wince......and therefore will always slate them.....NOT memorize them in any good way, how foolish are they!

So I take it you'll not be buying tickets for their Christmas show ....?

http://www.goh.co.uk/WhatsOn_focus.asp?ShowId=611&sC=page10

They used to put their annual show on at the Lyric but the newly revamped Lyric is clearly now going for something a bit more highbrow as the poor old GOH plunges for the lowest common demoninator.

Two hours of Hughes adverts in one show - what could be better?!