BRITAIN’S MOST DANGEROUS ANIMALS ARE … BOXER DOG PUPPIES.

GADGET-COVER.COM

MOBILE PHONE & GADGET INSURANCE

PRESS RELEASE

May 22, 2012.

BRITAIN’S MOST DANGEROUS ANIMALS ARE … BOXER DOG PUPPIES.

It’s official – Britain’s most dangerous animals are boxer dog puppies.

That’s the finding of www.gadget-cover.com, the UK’s longest-established mobile phone and electronic gadget insurance provider, which says that the combined teeth and slobber content of a boxer chewing on a mobile phone are fatal – to the phone.

“Puppies, generally, are the animals most cited when claims are made for pet-inflicted damage to mobile phones, iPods, satnavs and other electronic gadgets – but breeds such as boxers, which slobber more than most, result in more moisture damage, which is generally fatal for a phone,” said Carmi Korine of Gadget-Cover.

Puppies chewing on phones are the most common claim, followed by cats chasing them around table tops before knocking them on to hard floors. Wagging dog tails also do their fair share of damage by launching gadgets across rooms from low surfaces, but some claims are difficult to prove.

“We’ve had claims for people who say their snake has swallowed a phone, while others have claimed their parrots have cracked phone screens or peeled off covers, and we have had a claim that a pet monkey stole a phone and in playing with it ended up dialling a number in South America which stayed connected until the battery ran out, and ran up a bill of hundreds of pounds.

“We were speculating that he was phoning home.”

Of animal-related claims made in the first four months of 2012, these were the most frequent:

1. Puppies chewing phones or gadgets, 29%.
2. Adult dogs fetching phones for owners, 22%.
3. Dogs knocking phones onto hard surfaces or into liquid, 19%
4. Cats knocking phones onto hard surfaces, 13%.
5. Incidents involving horses, 9%.
6. Incidents involving fish tanks, 6%.
7. Other, 2%.

www.gadget-cover.com is part of Supercover Insurance, the UK’s longest-established insurer of mobile phones and high-intrinsic-value consumer electronics. Launched in 1995, the company offers theft, loss and damage insurance, as well as up to 3GB gadget content backup, for laptops, PCs, satellite navigation equipment, MP3 players including iPods, and other such communication, storage and gaming equipment.

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Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

07788 978800

www.gadget-cover.com

PHONE DROWNINGS UP AS SQUABBLING COUPLES, WORKAHOLICS AND STROPPY PUB LANDLORDS DROWN 430,000 MOBILE PHONES A YEAR.

GADGET-COVER.COM

MOBILE PHONE & GADGET INSURANCE

PRESS RELEASE

April 23, 2012.

PHONE DROWNINGS UP AS SQUABBLING COUPLES, WORKAHOLICS AND STROPPY PUB LANDLORDS DROWN 430,000 MOBILE PHONES A YEAR.

Squabbling couples, prankster colleagues, children and stroppy bar staff are responsible for nearly 430,000 insurance claims a year in the UK for mobile phones being dropped in drinks.

www.gadget-cover.com  the UK’s longest-established mobile phone insurance provider, estimates around 30,000 more claims for phone dunkings were made in 2011-12 financial year compared to 2009-2010.

Gadget-Cover asked a cross-section of customers how their phones ended up being drowned, and there’s been a slight change in reasons for water-, wine- and beer-logging.

“For men, the main cause remains stretching across a desk or table and their phone falling out of their shirt pocket into a drink, or a phone being knocked into a drink during a meeting – people wave their arms around in meetings, often with a phone in their hand, and some contrive to lose grip on their phones and get a bull’s-eye on a cup of tea or coffee they could never manage if they tried,” said Carmi Korine of www.gadget-cover.com.

“For women, the main cause is a child, toddler or baby playing with a phone that they drop into a cup or glass, but with an emerging trend for children to wash phones they’ve gooped, or to put them in washing machines.

“Those are the two single biggest causes at around 40% each (170,000 each, 340,000 total) – primarily because more people have more phones, and have them in their hands more of the time; but there is a fall-off in phone rage or phone envy when the owner of the phone is not directly responsible for it finding its way into a drink – down from around 45,000 to around 36,500.

“Arguments between couples have resulted in a doubling in the number of phones being dropped into drinks deliberately – up to 11,000 a year compared to 5,500 a year in 2009. Working on holiday, or simply working too hard are other issues – that’s also doubled to around 2,000 incidents of that nature.

“Office parties and drinking sessions with work colleagues can result in an ever-ringing phone being dropped in a pint, and we do get quite a few claims when a client or customer has dropped a supplier or adviser’s phone in a drink because they keep answering it during meetings – if we gross up our claims levels pro-rata nationally, then this would equate to around 2,000 claims.

“People ‘posing’ or showing off their phones, or talking embarrassingly loud in bars or restaurants resulted in around a thousand incidences of snatch-and-dunk.

“But at least once a day a stroppy pub landlord will take a phone off a customer and drop it in a drink – usually in the north, and usually because the pub has a phone ban.”

The remainder of claims arise from phones being left on table tops and being drowned in spreading pools of spilt drinks, phones left in bags with leaky drinks containers, or unexplained incidents in which phones are swamped.

www.gadget-cover.com is part of Supercover Insurance, the UK’s longest-established insurer of mobile phones and high-intrinsic-value consumer electronics. Launched in 1995, the company offers theft, loss and damage insurance, as well as up to 3GB gadget content backup, for laptops, PCs, satellite navigation equipment, MP3 players including iPods, and other such communication, storage and gaming equipment.

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

07788 978800

www.gadget-cover.com

SUPERCOVER INSURANCE LAUNCHES PERSONAL EMERGENCY COVER POLICY FOR RESELLERS.

SUPERCOVER INSURANCE

MOBILE PHONE & GADGET INSURANCE

PRESS RELEASE

February 27, 2012.

SUPERCOVER INSURANCE LAUNCHES PERSONAL EMERGENCY COVER POLICY FOR RESELLERS.

Supercover Insurance, www.supercoverinsurance.com, has launched a personal emergency cover policy which is available for resellers to offer to customers and clients.

“HelpMeOut!” is a concierge service which can be a stand-alone product or added to existing Supercover products such as Gadget Cover, Handbag Cover, Tools Cover or Bicycle Cover.

RRP is £1.25 a month or £15 a year, with a highly competitive ongoing commission.

HelpMeOut! Provides cancellation and replacement of debit and credit cards in case of loss or theft, arranges a locksmith in case of lost or stolen keys, replaces car or house keys, reports and blacklists a lost or stolen mobile phone to the network provider, arranges transportation in case of lost or stolen car keys or wallet or any similar emergency, and makes family and friends aware of the emergency situation.

London-based Supercover Insurance is the UK’s longest-established insurer of mobile phones and high-intrinsic-value consumer electronics. Launched in 1995, the company offers theft, loss and damage insurance, as well as up to 3GB gadget content backup, for laptops, PCs, satellite navigation equipment, MP3 players including iPods, and other such communication, storage and gaming equipment.

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

07788 978800

www.supercoverinsurance.com

NEW COVERBOX PAY-AS-YOU-DRIVE OWNERS TAKE INSURANCE BACK 350 YEARS.

PAY AS YOU DRIVE INSURANCE

PRESS RELEASE

January 23, 2012.

NEW COVERBOX PAY-AS-YOU-DRIVE OWNERS TAKE INSURANCE BACK 350 YEARS.

Pay-as-you-drive car insurer Coverbox has been acquired by new owners - and the new business looks set to take insurance back to the 17^th century.

The new owners – one of whom established Budget Insurance, one of the UK’s most successful intermediaries with more than two million customers – plan to grow the current proposition user base, as well as introduce new insurance rating and charging processes aimed at driving pricing efficiencies, and moving away from the traditional “one price fits each demographic” model.

Coverbox Limited – which has 15,000 customers - will have new offices in Billingham and Peterborough in addition to its current Portsmouth presence, but the nature and structure of the business means there will be no changes to headcount.

Managing Director Johan van der Merwe said: “Coverbox is a telematics-based insurer – we basically monitor and assess the driving behaviour of the vehicle user via on-board technology which enables us to provide a much more accurate rate, and a very specific understanding of risk.

“The amount of information we gather from devices installed in customers’ vehicles – time and location of journeys, driver behaviour during those journeys and so on – means that we are in a position to develop much more bespoke insurance products, personalised to specific drivers.

“It also means we can reward well-behaved drivers – for instance, we all know young drivers who are maniacs behind the wheel, but we also all know young drivers who are incredibly safe and sensible behind the wheel. But the current insurance market lumps them all together as being equally high liability. We can change that.

“In many ways, the latest and developing technology in vehicle insurance actually allows us to go back to the earliest days of insurance, when underwriters sat in dockside coffee houses in the 17^th century and assessed the risk value of each and every ship leaving the port according to cargo, route, season, state of repair of the ship and level of experience of the captain.

“Even just a few years ago, people were wary – and a little scared – of the amount of ‘Big Brother’ information gathered about them, but the younger generations in particular recognise the benefits of person-specific information gathering, and are largely unworried by how their lives are monitored.

“As attitudes change from resistance to change to demand for change, the opportunity for the insurance industry to drive efficiencies, gain trust and develop new products grows.”

Coverbox Limited acquired the Coverbox business asset from technology company Wunelli.

Coverbox pay-as-you-drive insurance allows drivers to take out comprehensive cover paid for by the mile, with the price per mile varying according to the time of the day or night: off-peak, peak or “super-peak” times.

All Coverbox policyholders get free theft tracking – a £200 premium on top of a traditional insurance policy – and have a personal website enabling them to see precisely how many miles they are driving, and what the cost is. The technology behind Coverbox is based on proven equipment specified by several major car makers.

Ends

Iain Macauley

07788 978800

im@pressrelations.co.uk

www.coverbox.co.uk

RE-DEFINING ‘OLD’; IT’S NOT 65 - IT’S 93.

DR ROS ALTMANN

DIRECTOR-GENERAL, SAGA

PRESS RELEASE

April 24, 2011.

RE-DEFINING ‘OLD’; IT’S NOT 65 - IT’S 93.

When Her Majesty the Queen celebrated her 85^th birthday on April 21, 2011, she may have finally re-defined Britain’s perception of what is “old”; it’s not 65 - it’s 93.

But the question is who will have the guts to decline Her Majesty for insurance for her cars or foreign travel on age grounds, says over-50s lifestyle group Saga, one of the very few who’d quote the Queen for her Land Rover - or for more than 30 days foreign travel a year.

“If the Queen was living in Buckingham Avenue rather than Buckingham Palace, then, despite her proven ability to match or better world leaders half her age, home or away, she’ll find it a bit tougher to get insurance to drive, or travel abroad. It’s all down to a perception of age and what is ‘old’,” said Dr Ros Altmann, Director-General of Saga.

“In the year the Queen was born, 1926, the definition of ‘old’ was effectively set in stone, and we became stuck with it.

“That definition of ‘old age’ has survived for generations: 1926 was the year the state pension age was set at 65, and established the perception that we’re officially very old and past-it at 65. At the time, around 60% of people did not live long enough to collect their state pension.

“But because of the setting of that milestone, our mindset today says 65 is old – as if every older person around us is an exception rather than the rule.

“In 1926, average life expectancy was 61 for women and just 57 for men, so the pension age was 14% beyond a man's average life expectancy.  In 2011, life expectancy is 82 for women and 77 for men.  14% beyond that would be age 93 for women and 88 for men.  

“So, by this new definition, our Queen may not yet be very 'old'. Indeed, around a fifth of people alive today will live to 100 - and there’s a very good chance that could include the Queen too, given her family’s famous longevity.

“But even people in their 90s and beyond embarrass younger generations with their wisdom and vitality.

“At 85, the Queen is a renowned wit, a handy Land Rover driver, has boundless energy both on public duty and in privately enjoying the great outdoors. But how many times do we meet hugely active older people and say, ‘you can’t be that old, surely?’ They should actually be considered the rule, not the exception.”

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

07788 978800

im@pressrelations.co.uk

www.saga.co.uk

SUPERCOVER INSURANCE CREATES POLICY FOR THEFT-TARGET iPAD

SUPERCOVER INSURANCE

PRESS RELEASE

April 22, 2010.

SUPERCOVER INSURANCE CREATES POLICY FOR THEFT-TARGET iPAD.

Supercover Insurance has moved quickly to create a policy to cover what it expects to be potentially the most theft-targetted tech product of 2010.

The Apple iPad is expected to be launched in the UK in May, but such is demand in the USA that the UK launch is running behind – and that, says Supercover, www.supercoverinsurance.com, could well lead to iPad-focussed theft epidemics.

“The vast majority of iPad buyers are excited but honest, and are waiting patiently for their order to pitch up. But there are some people out there who, as was the case with the iPod and iPhone, simply can’t wait and don’t care where their iPad comes from, even if the source is dubious,” said Carmi Korine of Supercover Insurance.

“We’ve created a white label policy for resellers which can be included in new or existing policies, sold as an incremental revenue product or as an as an add-on to motor or home policies providing substantial ongoing revenue streams. It is available to insurers, brokers, banks and other insurance providers and brand partners at £7.99 a month, with very attractive commission deals.

“But we’re also going to be keeping a wary eye open for claims that happen just a bit too quickly: we’ve seen with iPhones that people can sometimes be tempted to make a claim for a lost iPhone, which isn’t actually lost at all, and then when the insurance replacement arrives they sell it on at a vast premium while retaining and using their original iPhone.

“We anticipate there will be some questionable claims with the iPad, but we’re geared up to address any claims that don’t appear to be legitimate.”

Supercover Insurance is a 15-years-established provider of insurance for consumer portable high-intrinsic-value products such as mobile phones, laptops and other gadgets, as well as spectacles.

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

0161 929 0446/07788 978800

www.supercoverinsurance.com

UNINSURED GLASSES: SPEC WEARERS LOOK TO FRIENDS, PSYCHICS - AND THE TOILET.

SPECSCOVER.COM

GLASSES INSURANCE

PRESS RELEASE

March 26, 2010.

UNINSURED GLASSES: SPEC WEARERS LOOK TO FRIENDS, PSYCHICS – AND THE TOILET.

Consulting a psychic and dialling 999 are just two of the things people have done or would do if they lost their uninsured glasses.

Praying, posting a lost-and-found ad on the internet and going to a Police station in a bid to recover their uninsured specs also figure in what people would do to be re-united with their specs according to a survey carried out by glasses insurer www.specscover.com.

The most common place they’re found is “in plain view”, while other locations they’re likely to be re-discovered include “on my head”.

“There’s a tremendous sales opportunity from opticians and insurers to glasses wearers: With something like 30 million specs users in the UK there will inevitably be losses and breakages – but we’re still surprised how few opticians actually offer glasses insurance,” said Carmi Korine of Supercover Insurance, which owns the SpecsCover.com (www.specscover.com) brand.

“Some opticians are embracing glasses insurance sales with enthusiasm – those that are business-focussed - but those that are medical-led are simply not seeing the incremental revenue opportunity.

“Based on selling four standard insurance policies a day for 25 days each month, opticians we’re currently working with are on target to generate £30,000 profit in the first 24 months of insurance policy sales.

“With insurance premiums to customers starting at 6p a day it is extremely easy to sell – and ours is the only policy that covers theft as well as accidental damage and loss - but there is also the potential to up-sell to higher-value glasses when customers make claims for lost, stolen or broken glasses.”

SpecsCover.com, a multi-level policy aimed at both the consumer market and as an incremental revenue product for independent opticians. The policy allows opticians to guarantee their customers 48-hour turnaround on replacement glasses, with premiums of between £19.99 and £49.99 a year offering between £150 and £500 of cover. Customers also have the option of making interest-free monthly payments from as little as £1.99, with no financial penalties for paying by instalments.

People searching for glasses most readily asked friends had they seen them, followed by backtracking their most recent route or actions, posting an online lost-and-found ad, offering a reward, going to a Police station, “quartering” (carrying out a methodical search), consulting a psychic, praying, dialling 999 or doing “other”.

Most likely place to find lost glasses was “in plain view”, followed by in or on furniture, in own clothing, in a bar or restaurant, in a bus/train/cab, on a car roof, in the bin, in newspapers, “on my head”, in a washing machine, in somebody else’s clothing and in a toilet.

www.SpecsCover.com is owned by Supercover Insurance, a 15-years-established provider of insurance for consumer portable high-intrinsic-value products such as mobile phones, laptops and other gadgets, as well as spectacles.

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

0161 929 0446/07788 978800

www.supercoverinsurance.com

www.specscover.com

LOST GLASSES: SPEC WEARERS LOOK TO FRIENDS, PSYCHICS – AND THE TOILET

SPECSCOVER.COM

GLASSES INSURANCE

PRESS RELEASE

March 25, 2010.

LOST GLASSES: SPEC WEARERS LOOK TO FRIENDS, PSYCHICS – AND THE TOILET.

Consulting a psychic and dialling 999 are just two of the things people have done or would do if they lost their glasses.

Praying, posting a lost-and-found ad on the internet and going to a Police station to report them lost also figure in what people would do to be re-united with their specs according to a survey carried out by glasses insurer www.specscover.com.

The most common place they’re found is “in plain view”, while other locations they’re likely to be re-discovered include “on my head”.

Thirty three per cent of people would go to a friend or colleague first to ask if they’d seen them, while 5% would go to a psychic and 1% would dial 999.

“People who don’t wear glasses perhaps don’t appreciate the desperation and lengths those who do wear them will go to to find their lost specs,” said Carmi Korine of SpecsCover.

“That 4% of specs losers would pray is pretty significant, that 5% would consult a psychic indicates the level of desperation, but even just 1% dialling 999 is a little eye-opening.”

People searching for glasses most readily asked friends had they seen them, followed by backtracking their most recent route or actions, posting an online lost-and-found ad, offering a reward, going to a Police station, “quartering” (carrying out a methodical search), consulting a psychic, praying, dialling 999 or doing “other”.

Most likely place to find lost glasses was “in plain view”, followed by in or on furniture, in own clothing, in a bar or restaurant, in a bus/train/cab, on a car roof, in the bin, in newspapers, “on my head”, in a washing machine, in somebody else’s clothing and in a toilet.

“The great irony is that glasses insurance covering loss, damage or theft only costs from £1.99 a month, probably about the same as the bus fare to the local Police station, and certainly less than the price of a reward or lost-and-found ad,” said Carmi Korine.

www.SpecsCover.com is owned by Supercover Insurance, a 15-years-established provider of insurance for consumer portable high-intrinsic-value products such as mobile phones, laptops and other gadgets, as well as spectacles.

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

0161 929 0446/07788 978800

www.supercoverinsurance.com

www.specscover.com

“Too good” customer service costs mobile phone companies dearly.

SUPERCOVER INSURANCE

PRESS RELEASE

March 2, 2010.

“Too good” customer service costs mobile phone companies dearly.

Over-enthusiastic customer service is costing the mobile phone industry dearly as allegedly lost and damaged handsets are replaced without enough questioning or investigation.

Carmi Korine, director of Supercover Insurance – one of the longest established mobile phone insurers – said that a growing community of less-than-honest customers are taking advantage of mobile phone companies and insurers torn between hanging onto subscribers and questioning dubious insurance claims.

Insurance claims made end-to-end by phone have become the norm as insurers compete on speed, efficiency and fast customer service.

“Typically, a claim will be made by phone, the customer will falsely state a phone has been lost, they’ll be sent a new replacement – but they’ll continue to use the old one and sell the new one, sometimes for hundreds of pounds,” said Carmi Korine.

“We and our clients and partners – a range of high street names and big brands – have been slowly but surely tightening-up procedures for mobile phone loss claims after this trend started to emerge.

“We’ve found that in introducing downloadable claims forms, which have to be filled in to back up an ‘in-principle-agreed’ claim over the phone, around half of the claims made by phone simply disappear.

“We also developed a simple process to track and time use of the ‘lost’ phone, and, working with the service providers, discovered that some claimants were even making their claims by ringing from their ‘lost’ phone, even though they had changed the SIM card, and hence the number. Mobile phone usage can be tracked through electronic serial numbers as well as the phone number.

“Fundamentally, as an example, a false claimant will lose or damage a phone, claim it is no longer in his or her possession, make a claim to the insurer – which, in this day and age can be under any brand name, not necessarily insurance – and try to drive the claim through over the phone.

“This type and level of service has been growing as insurers compete to offer the fastest claim turnaround service, but phone-call-only claims are wide open to abuse – with the emergence of serial false-claimants committing what, effectively, is fraud.”

Supercover is a 15-years-established provider of insurance for consumer portable high-intrinsic-value products such as mobile phones, laptops and other gadgets, as well as spectacles.

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

0161 929 0446/07788 978800

www.supercoverinsurance.com