Passion for Cars

Fidos food
As a consequence, one in 10 dog owners (11 per cent) admit their pet is overweight – a third (32 per cent) of these by half a stone or more, with one in 20 (six per cent) by over a stone. Although the occasional Choc Drop or dog bone is an acceptable way of treating your pet, it is important to make sure your dog is sticking to the correct dog food regime. These luxury menus for mutts don’t come cheap though, and the country’s pet owners shell out £2.3 billion* a year to keep their dog in the food to which they have become accustomed. Read more...

Brits fork out 1.7 billion
More than 43,000 (2 per cent)** arrived back from their overseas wedding to discover that they had been burgled. “It’s great that couples are choosing to reward themselves in this way, but it’s also extremely important that they make sure that their home contents are fully covered before they jet off. “Affordable airfares, a sense of adventure and the drudgery of British weather mean that overseas weddings are more popular than they have ever been. Results were weighted to be representative of the UK population. Read more..

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Passion For Cars

Passion for Cars

10/02/2006

British drivers are concreting over their front lawns to make room for their ever-increasing collection of cars, according to research out today from Direct Line.

Close to nine in 10 (85 per cent) households own a car with four in 10 (40 per cent) now owning two or more cars. This coupled with 40% of motorists complaining of limited street parking in their area, has caused one in five (17 per cent) space-starved car-owners* to turn their front gardens into concrete drives.

The cost of on-street parking is also driving motorists to pave over their gardens – over one million** UK drivers pay on average of £439 per year for the privilege of parking outside their home - be it for parking permits or garage rental.

So desperate are drivers becoming for parking spaces that close to one in six (14 per cent) have moved home specifically to gain a garage or drive.

World Cup Shopping
One in five (18 per cent) football-crazed Brits** are planning to snap up more than a million wide screen TVs (5 per cent), satellite boxes (3 per cent) and recordable DVD players (2 per cent), spending an average of £369 each. Yet it appears that their enjoyment of this kit may be short-lived as nearly a third (29 per cent)*** plan to invite friends around to watch games, with many predicting a repeat performance of the 2002 World Cup, when close to one in ten (12 per cent) report that damage was done during celebrations at home. The majority of party damage was caused by spontaneous ce... Read more...

The cost of paving over a garden doesn’t come cheap with research showing car-owners spend on average £1,300 on turning their gardens into drives – with one in 10 (11 per cent) spending more than £3,000.

Direct Line has commissioned the research to tie in with the launch of its new multi car discount. Policyholders will now be given a discount on their insurance if they insure two or more cars with Direct Line.

For every 2nd, 3rd and up to a maximum of 10 cars the customer will benefit from a 10% discount on the price of the policy. So, for example, a family of four with mum, dad and two children all driving their own cars the family would save 40% on the cost of a policy overall. The policy is also open to friends living at the same address.

The UK is truly a nation of car lovers with Brits spending more on their wheels than almost anywhere else in Europe. One in four motorists say they spend more than £10,000 on a car – and many admit to taking out loans (32 per cent), forfeiting holidays (three per cent) and blowing their savings (44 per cent) to fund them.

Emma Holyer, Direct Line’s Motor spokesperson, said:

“It doesn’t seem to matter how difficult it is to park or how much it costs to keep a second car Brits still buy them. We have turned into a nation of car fanatics foregoing fun activities in order to get our next set of flashy wheels. The two-car household is now more likely to be the three or four car household with the costs of owning the cars running into thousands. To help all those with two or more cars Direct Line will now be offering a discount to anyone insuring more than one car with us.”

Front gardens aren’t just vanishing because of car space – one in 10 (12 per cent) households admit that they’re not green-fingered and want a front garden easy to maintain. Currently five per cent of households are planning to exchange their turf for concrete.

Shopping starts at 50
11 8 14 16 6 16 0 Number who enjoy impulse shopping. Therefore, over-50s men spend 3.3 billion more than over-50s women. Average spend/year = 1570. These 'MOFS' (Male Over Fifty Spenders) are turning the traditional view that shopping is solely a female pastime on its head, as six in ten (57 per cent) of 50 plus men admit that they enjoy spending more than ever. Read more...

The research was carried out on behalf of Direct Line motor insurance by YouGov. A nationally representative sample of 2,037 GB adults were questioned online between 6th to 10th January 2006.

*According to the findings 85 per cent of households are car-owners. 45 per cent own one car, 31 per cent own two cars, seven per cent own three cars and two per cent own four cars. 15 per cent of households do not own any cars.
**There are 33.8 million drivers in the UK (Census data, 2001) and according to the YouGov findings four per cent of motorists have to pay for parking outside their property. 0.04 x 33,809,493 = 1,352,380
***According to the findings 86 per cent of households in the UK have spent on average £7,819 on their cheapest car. The findings also revealed that UK households own on average 1.6 cars. £7,819 x 1.6 cars = £12,510.4.

Sales spending spree
“Homeowners just need to remember that all of these purchases are likely to bump up the value of their home contents. Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of Brits tell us that they don’t re-calculate the value of their household contents after the January sales, which is unwise. “It may have been a quiet Christmas on the high street, but it looks like shoppers will make up for it in this year’s sales, picking up luxury goods for a fraction of the price they would have been before Christmas. direct line pet insurance Read more..

Parents are a cause for conecern.
Results were weighted to be representative of the GB population. Such is the concern of some that more than one in 10 offspring have relocated themselves or their parents to be close to each other. Worse still, even when their parents do try to have their property repaired significant numbers (nine per cent of over 60s) get ripped off by cowboy tradesmen and pay too much for home repairs. A fifth of Britons (21 per cent) said they worried about their parents’ sub-standard housing because of damp, unsafe heating and old-fashioned security. Read more...

Homeowners to fork out
In the rest of the country, the average of those who believed their home was more at risk was only 27 per cent. 3 December 2005 Winter costs homeowners in the United Kingdom £16.7* billion every year, Direct Line Home Insurance has revealed. Homeowners to fork out Homeowners set to fork out 17 billion in winter repairs. Read more...

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