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.

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

07788 978800

www.gadget-cover.com

INSURER TO PUBLISH 250 MILLION MILE REPORT WHICH COULD CHANGE THE WAY CARS ARE INSURED.

COVERBOX

CAR INSURANCE TELEMATICS

PRESS RELEASE

March 2, 2012.

INSURER TO PUBLISH 250 MILLION MILE REPORT WHICH COULD CHANGE THE WAY CARS ARE INSURED.

A report on the analysis of more four billion fields of data collected from 250 million miles of vehicle journeys looks set to change the way car insurance premiums are set.

Insurance pioneer Johan van der Merwe, who acquired telematics-based pay-as-you-drive insurer Coverbox earlier in 2012, commissioned the report which has assessed the behaviour of tens of thousands of drivers since 2009.

It will be presented to a select panel of leading insurance companies in March.  Telematics records the movement of vehicles for analysis – including acceleration, braking, cornering as well as routes and parking location and other parameters - via GPS.

"What it reveals is that there's an overwhelming case for changing the way the insurance industry sets premiums: we can record, analyse and compare driving behaviour as against applying insurance 'proxy ratings' - we get factual driving information, and base rates on driving style and location rather than lifestyle and home address," said Mr Van der Merwe.

"Addresses are relevant to theft - massively less-likely with modern vehicle security - whereas driving style is relevant to injury or death, which obviously command much higher compensation payments.

"A low mileage car 'living' in a proxy rating high-risk area may rarely move, and may even be driven very carefully, but a high mileage car whose owner lives in a proxy rating low-risk area may actually be driven very aggressively through many rush-hour accident black spots, or in dangerous 'super-peak' periods.

"The report illustrates that both insurers and drivers will be better off if insurance is rated on driving style rather than lifestyle, and that good drivers don't suffer from the behaviour of bad drivers.

"The beauty is the speed with which the system could be introduced."

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 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 and technology.

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley
im@pressrelations.co.uk
@Press_Relations
07788 978800

FAKE INSURANCE CLAIMANTS CAUGHT WITH TROUSERS DOWN – LITERALLY

GADGET-COVER.COM

MOBILE PHONE & GADGET INSURANCE

PRESS RELEASE

February 22, 2012.

FAKE INSURANCE CLAIMANTS CAUGHT WITH TROUSERS DOWN – LITERALLY.

A naked bedroom raider and a trouser-removing prostitute who couldn’t be fought off one-handed by a youth carrying a takeaway are amongst dodgy and declined insurance claims made for lost or stolen mobile phones.

More and more fraudsters are being caught with their pants down as insurers tighten the belt on ever more creative bids to trouser cash from false or questionable mobile phone loss and theft claims.

Gadget-cover.com, which provides policies for resellers including many high street names, saw a near-doubling of insurance claims for lost or stolen mobile phones in January 2012 over January 2011, but it would have been higher still had new tougher checks not identified fake or suspicious claims.

Carmi Korine of www.gadget-cover.com, which is the biggest and longest-established insurer in the sector, said that two attempted claimants in particular were caught, literally, with their pants well and truly down.

“One attempted claim arose when a customer’s son went on holiday with a friend and his friend’s parents. The phone was alleged to have disappeared one night when, whilst they were all in bed, a naked guy came in to the parents’ room and got in the bed with them.

“The father then awoke and kicked the naked guy out of their room, but before leaving, the naked guy put on the customer’s son’s trousers, which were on the floor, and left – we weren’t given a clear explanation as to why his trousers were in his friend’s parents’ hotel room.

“The phone was said to be in the trousers which were taken by the naked guy. The parents did not think the incursion was strange, and carried on with their sleep. There was no sign of forced entry.

“The second incident is also alleged to have involved a loss of trousers. The claimant’s son was coming home from a takeaway shop. He said he walked into a back street in order to wait for a cab, which he had called for earlier.

“Whilst waiting for the cab in this back street, a woman, who he described as looking like a prostitute, walked up to him and began touching him and pulling down his trousers. The customer says her son tried to push the ‘prostitute’ away but was ineffective in his efforts as he was carrying his takeaway in one hand.

“The woman managed to pull his trousers all the way down to his ankles and, after a while, she left and he later realised his phone was no longer in his pocket. The customer’s son was so traumatised he did not leave his room for three days.”

In each case, and based on wider assessment of the submissions made, but withheld here to avoid identification, the claims were declined.

www.gadget-cover.com is part of London-based Supercover Insurance, which 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.gadget-cover.com

CAR INSURANCE: DITCH POSTCODE-BASED PREMIUM-SETTING, USE 17TH CENTURY SHIPPING RISK ASSESSMENT

COVERBOX

CAR INSURANCE TELEMATICS

PRESS RELEASE

February 23, 2012.

CAR INSURANCE: DITCH POSTCODE-BASED PREMIUM-SETTING, USE 17^TH CENTURY SHIPPING RISK ASSESSMENT.

Car insurance premium-setting-by-postcode should be ditched and replaced by a rating process based on a system of risk assessment developed for 17^th century shipping.

That’s the view of insurance pioneer Johan van der Merwe who says that advanced but established 2012 telematics technology would produce far more representative insurance premiums based on where and how a car is driven rather than socio-economic factors relating to the owner’s home address.

Mr Van der Merwe and a group of fellow investors acquired UK pay-as-you-drive car insurer Coverbox earlier in 2012, and with it they acquired telematics technology which monitors the time, place and manner in which a car is driven, all of which he says are more significant in calculating insurance premiums than where the car owner’s home is.

“Theft of a vehicle from its owner’s home is a minor consideration for insurers when compared with the third party injury consequence of an accident. The cost of compensation for injury after even a relatively minor accident can be huge, and increases pro-rata with the number of occupants of vehicles involved,” said Johan van der Merwe.

“Currently premium and risk calculations are worked backwards from claims rather than forward from actual risk.  Claims are themselves flawed and as such not an accurate measurement of risk.

“But insurance premiums are rated on the home postcode of the car owner or user, and that car can often spend only a part of the day or night there, with a comparatively low theft risk.

“The remainder of the day it is driven through the rush hour, or on a school run, or on a shopping trip, and then parked in a location which may be more or less risky than the home location.

“But there is more danger of an accident in an urban rush hour than a motorway rush hour, more danger of accident if driving overnight or through an accident black spot and so on. So somebody who lives in a high-risk postcode but parks their car for most of the day in a low risk area is perhaps being charged too high a premium, while somebody who lives in a low-risk area and drives through accident black spots in the rush hour is being charged too low a premium.

“This is where 17^th century insurance risk assessment comes in, when underwriters sat in dockside coffee houses 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.

“Telematics – on-board measurement, movement, location and systems monitoring and recording – track the vehicle, how and where it is being driven, and provide us with information which enables us to accurately assess the insurance risk of that specific car based on route and driving behaviour.

“The system will generate the technological version of a wince if the car is being driven through an accident black spot at peak time, but be far more relaxed if the route and time of travel is less risky. That will be reflected in an according premium adjustment, and, because the driver can go online and see what the system thinks about driving behaviour or location, may even cause him or her to alter their driving standards or routes they travel. That obviously has massive potential for bringing down, for instance, young drivers’ insurance costs by changing their behaviour.”

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 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 and technology.

Ends

Further information:

Iain Macauley

im@pressrelations.co.uk

@Press_Relations

07788 978800