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Women Closing Skills Gap

May 2008

Women are closing the skills gap, and are hot on the heels of men when it comes to DIY according to findings from a survey by Budget Van Insurance.

It seems that women are tired of waiting for men to do those annoying jobs around the house and are picking up hammers and drills for themselves. Seventy per cent of women say they will put together flat-packed furniture themselves, and over a third of women will put a shelf up without assistance. Over three-quarters of the female population say they take charge of painting and decorating, enforcing the old adage that a woman’s work is never done!

It seems that women aren’t just using their DIY skills around the house, with over a quarter of them performing basic car maintenance for themselves and over 20% changing their own tyres.

Martin Chillcott, Marketing Director, Budget Insurance says:

  “The results of this survey shouldn’t be surprising, women have always had the ability to multi-task and are now showing that they aren’t happy to sit around and wait for DIY jobs to be done for them - they’re taking charge!”

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

Note to editors:

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.
Registered in England no 3231094