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Enough to drive you mad!

April 2008

The results of a poll conducted by Budget Van Insurance show the average tradesman in Britain spends nearly 30% of their time (28.6%) driving their vehicles between jobs. This equates to over ten years of their working life behind the wheel of a van!*  

With so much time being spent in their vehicle, it’s not surprising that tradesmen continue to be hit hard in the pocket with fuel prices that have increased nearly 20% in the last year adding to the overall cost of maintaining a vehicle whilst on the road. Fortunately insurance costs haven’t risen by as much as inflation.

Lisa Corston, Marketing Manager, Budget Van Insurance says:
“It’s hard to imagine spending a total of ten years of your working life behind a wheel, but for many tradesmen the road is the only means of transporting their tools to so many different locations.

“The high cost of fuel affects all drivers but for most tradesmen their van is an essential part of their working life and the 20% increase in fuel over the last year has a material impact on their overheads and undoubtedly affects the profitability of their business.  We can only hope that the congestion, road works and traffic wardens don’t affect van driver’s blood pressure too much!”

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For further information please contact:
Roland Cross/Joanne McGilway
Broadgate                                                                               020 7726 6111

Note to editors:
*based on a poll conducted by Budget Van Insurance between [ ] 2007.

The BGL Group

The BGL Group, formerly known as Budget Group of Companies (the Group) was founded in 1992 and has grown to become one of the UK’s largest personal lines insurance intermediaries, through a combination of organic growth and a series of major strategic acquisitions (the last major acquisition was five years ago).

The Group now arranges and administers insurance for 1.9 million customers. It operates major contact centre operations (Fusion) in Peterborough, Coventry, Sunderland, Peterlee in the UK, and Cape Town, South Africa. The Group currently employs 2,255 people with its head office in Peterborough.

As an intermediary, the Group is able to access a wide range of underwriters, making it highly competitive in the marketplace, offering core products such as motor, home, commercial vehicle and motorcycle insurance.  The Group also offers a wide range of supplementary products, which include breakdown cover, legal protection, travel insurance, life assurance, pet insurance and mortgage payment protection insurance.

 In 2006 the Group received ‘Intermediary of the Year’ (Insurance Age UK Broker Awards) for its outstanding contribution to the insurance industry.  In April 2007, the Sunday Times’ PricewaterhouseCoopers Profit Track 100 rankings selected the Group as ‘one to watch’.

Budget Van insurance searches a panel of 12 insurers to offer competitively priced van insurance, in addition to exceptional product benefits. In 2006 Budget Van launched various innovative marketing campaigns including ‘it’s a van man thing’ and ‘flying traffic wardens’, which resulted in it being awarded ‘Marketing Campaign of The Year 2006’ (Insurance Times Awards). More recently Budget Van and News of the World have joined forces to produce the Dream Dates Calendar 2008.

BISL Ltd, part of the BGL Group s is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Registered Address: Pegasus House, Bakewell Road, Orton Southgate, PE2 6YS.