Trains, planes, credit cards, festivals, and books are some of the Virgin brands still going from strength to strength. Record label, record store, bridal wear, radio station, and mobile phones are some of those that have had their day and been bought for millions. Sir Richard Branson is never short of ideas for new Virgin ventures. For the last five years car insurance has been an arm of his increasingly popular Virgin Money, that deals with mortgages, loans, pensions and credit cards.

How can you tell which is a good or bad car insurer? Nowadays this is a fairly unanswerable question because everyone has a different set of criteria for their policy, not to mention much more chance of finding the exact one that suits them. We have price comparison sites to make things much easier for us. This has now resulted in customers having little to no loyalty towards insurance providers, but rather going with the company that comes out top of the list, i.e. the least expensive.

This is certainly true for new drivers and this is where Virgin surprisingly comes into the equation. Maybe because of their airline you might not associate Virgin with being focused on the budget end of the marketplace. but if you are a new driver, without a no claims bonus, Virgin are well worth looking into. They offer a 10% discount if you buy online and they have a number of optional extras, one of which is a no claims protection if you have a four-year discount saved up. They won the best motor insurance award in 2007 from Your Money Direct.

Like all providers, Virgin suffers from mixed reviews from customers, and this is largely because people only voice their opinions when either very happy or very unhappy. They might be better for those only looking into third party cover because they are one of the cheaper providers across the country. They aren’t always the most reliable in terms of customer services though, when replacement cars are promised or your own car has to be repaired. However, it is certainly worth having a look at their website.

If you are a young driver, then the greatest threat currently to your sanity is probably not Credit Crunch or dangers to world peace, but the cost of your car insurance. Let’s face it, with minimal to zero No Claims Bonus (NCB), you are either going to need a second loan to insure your car, or drive round in something with less power than a ride-on mower.

Admiral Insurance has successfully run their No-Claims Bonus Accelerator scheme for just this reason. How it works is that you basically pay for a year’s car insurance but only receive ten months of cover. To the uninitiated, this may sound like a false economy, but fear not, as the company will give you a full One Year No Claims Bonus for every ten months. The first year NCB is worth a 30% discount on your following year’s policy alone, so you are taking a small short term hit for a longer term gain.

To a young driver who is desperate to get their bottom behind the wheel of some marginally hot metal, there is no better way of being able to afford to do so. When you’ve just been given a shocking quote for that 1.2-litre Fiesta, it is tempting to want to give up and just walk everywhere. Admiral’s scheme offers younger drivers a real opportunity to get on the performance ladder.

What makes this really great is that there is nothing to stop you moving to a different insurer at a later date, and at that time, Admiral will provide you with full certification of your No Claims Bonus, so you do not even need to stay with them for this to be effective.

Customer Care

It is all easier to swallow when you actually ring Admiral, as the customer service team are helpful and the schemes are well explained. In a time when you expect to ring a high-rate telephone number before being asked to hold for ages for a call centre operator, it is very refreshing.

All in, this is a great idea and one that has been running successfully for several years. Companies will need to offer innovative services or products if they are to survive the mean ol’ Crunch, and this is a good example of a customer-focused offering.

Many of us are leading increasingly busy lives and have fallen into the habit of leaving everything until the last minute, especially boring paperwork. One thing, however, that should be put promptly to the top of our “To Do” list is renewing our car insurance.

Technological advances have made it possible for police on the move to be notified if we have not renewed our policies or have left it until the last minute to do so and we risk being stopped if we come to their notice. Automatic number plate recognition technology (anpr) is now available on all police cars, meaning that if you come into the car’s field of detection, an automatic check is made to see whether your car is insured. If you are unable to prove that you are in fact insured your vehicle can be confiscated.

This is not just another Big Brother attack on our freedom but is a concerted attempt by police to crack down on motorists who drive without insurance. Each year road accidents in which an uninsured driver is involved cost a staggering £500 million and it is the honest driver who ends up paying, in the form of increased premiums.

Simon Douglas from the AA explains why it is not a good idea to leave renewing your insurance to the eleventh hour. "The moment a policy expires it is deleted from the MID” (Motor Insurers’ Database) and moreover it takes three to four working days for the database to be updated meaning that if you do not allow sufficient time to renew, you are quite likely to be stopped by the police.

Perhaps the best advice, if you cannot galvanise yourself into dealing with the chore as soon as the renewal notice is received, is to have the policy renewed automatically. If you think you have fallen foul of the procedure make sure you carry a note of your policy number and other relevant details so that the police can confirm that you are indeed insured if they stop you.

We may well pride ourselves as a nation as being upright, honest citizens but it seems that when our hard earned cash is involved we are prepared to lie through our teeth.

A survey carried out recently by moneysupermarket.com has revealed the unpalatable truth about our integrity as far as motor insurance claims are concerned and it does not make edifying reading.

It seems that 12 million motorists would be prepared to lie to their insurers in order to ensure their claim was paid in full. One of the questions posed to respondents was whether or not they would be honest if they had failed to secure their vehicle properly and it was later stolen. Over a third of drivers said that they would not tell their insurers willingly what had happened. Another third said that they would do so only if pressed, whilst a tenth said they would not reveal the truth whatever pressure was put upon them. Less than one in five would be totally honest and volunteer the information to their insurers.

We may well try to fool ourselves into thinking that we are just being economic with the truth and that the odd little white lie is not going to impact on wealthy concerns such as insurance companies. However, this is far from the case and not only are we guilty of breaking the law and risking being prosecuted for fraud, but the knock-on effect is that not only will we end up being uninsurable but premiums for honest drivers will be increased as a result.

As regards the divide between the sexes, the north and the south and the age groups, it seems that men are more inclined than women to lie, those in Yorkshire and the North East are most likely to lie with Scots being the most honest, whilst young drivers in their twenties are less inclined to confess to their motoring sins, with those in their sixties being the most honest of age groups.