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Consistently Cheap Car Insurance

As every Londoner knows, the way to cross the road is to put your head down, look neither left nor right, and cross. The cars will stop for you. (They're almost stationary already anyway.) I'm still alive so it must work, I reckon!

Other than the resultant occasional bruises and frequent wild tooting on my mad journeys to and from work, my (sometimes painful) relationship with cars doesn't go beyond the analysis of car finances. However, when I worked in the general insurance industry I didn't put my head down; I looked around a lot to see what was going on. I still do that now. Here are the two things that have most caught my attention this year.

1. The cost of car insurance

The cost of car insurance has been steadily falling for three years, thanks to an incredibly competitive market.

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Appeal of smaller cars grows

You've seen them on Canadian streets for years in ever-growing numbers -- compact cars like the Honda Civic and Mazda3, subcompacts like the Toyota Echo hatchback, and baby-SUVs like Ford's Escape. Now the newest of those mite-sized vehicles are the majority.

For the first time since car dealers opened for business in Canada, more than half of all retail buyers bought a small, fuel efficient vehicle last year, new research shows.

The data, compiled by DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, suggests most Canadians are already making the kind of auto-buying choices that will reduce their footprint on the environment. And it means that if the federal and provincial governments really want to make a difference to reduce vehicle emissions, they should focus on getting older beaters off the road instead of targeting new cars and trucks, the consultancy says.

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Leading US service management company sets up European base in ...

Service Bench provides a hosted web-based service management solution that centrally manages service calls, field service, parts, repairs and warranty management, enabling companies to manage and analyse the full service lifecycle to improve the customers service experience and reduce the manufacturers service costs. According to a report by AMR Research in September 2006, the aftermarket service represent 24% of revenue and 40-80% of profit to a manufacturer, however only a minority of companies have recognised the strategic importance and potential for differentiation by investing in the product after-market.

ServiceBench customer, retail giant Sears did, however, recognise the potential benefits of introducing a service management solution to handle their huge volume of after-sales warranties.