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One in five households rely on emergency tradesmen over Christmas and holidays

December 2007

One in five British households is forced to call-out emergency trade services during the holidays and weekends according to a poll released today by Budget Van Insurance.  The majority of call-outs are for plumbers (46%) followed by central heating engineers (13%) and locksmiths (10%). 

On top of festive spending, a third of respondents who have had to call-out the specialists have paid between £50-£100 for the service excluding any parts needed to complete the job.  While over ten per cent of respondents (23%) have paid between £150-£250 for services excluding parts. 

Lisa Corston, Budget Van Insurance:
“Householders should take all preventative measures to avoid any domestic disasters over Christmas– whether this is storing spare keys in a secure place, having your boiler serviced and keeping your home warm enough to avoid burst pipes.

 “With the cold-snap likely to continue over the coming weeks, we are urging people to ensure that their houses are in order to avoid any costly incidents.“

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Call-outs
20% of UK householders have at some time or other had to call out emergency trade services out of hours or during weekends/bank holidays.

46% of them have had to call-out plumbers, 13% central heating engineers, 10% locksmiths and 9% gas service providers and electricians.

The largest group - 33% - paid between £50-100 for the service excluding parts.   13% paid between £150-£250.

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

Note to editors:
The Survey for Budget Van Insurance was carried out online by Tickbox between 4.12.07 – 10.12.07 sample size 1395 UK adults

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