Money Towers

No-win no-fee lawyers are said to be the main cause of increasing car insurance premiums this year. Research shows that the average car insurance premium is set to rise 15 percent this year.

According to Consumer Intelligence, the average annual premium is £564.19, almost 20 percent higher than the same time last year – and is predicted to rise by 15 percent to £648.82 by January 2011.

There are two main factors contributing to the rise – the first are no-win no-fee solicitors whose ads on TV have seen many more people deciding to pursue personal injury claims after crashes, pushing up the amounts insurance companies have to pay out and therefore increasing premiums.  Read more... (143 words, 1 image, estimated 34 secs reading time)

With all the BA strike talk at the moment, if you’ve booked a flight and your airline goes on strike, what sort of comeback do you have?

If your flight is cancelled due to industrial action (aka a strike) EU regulations state that you should either be provided with an alternative flight to your destination or your plane ticket should be refunded in full within seven days of the cancellation.

If you have bought a flexible or refundable ticket, you can cancel the ticket ahead of the strike action and rebook your flight. If your plane ticket is non refundable, you should not cancel the ticket until strike action is fully confirmed as you will not receive a refund.  Read more... (327 words, 1 image, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)

It’s not the easiest time for small business owners – many are finding that customers are harder to come buy and those that are buying are bargaining hard. However it is still possible to grow your business in these difficult times. Here are 5 top tips to help you increase your business’ sales, turnover and profitability.

1. Free samples
Let your product speak for itself – send out free samples to your target demographic. If your product really is as good as you claim it is, sales should follow. The one caveat is that you should target your audience as much as possible to maximise sales – there’s no point sending out samples to uniterested parties as the sample will rarely convert to a sale.  Read more... (437 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

London mayor Boris Johnson has warned that up to 9,000 bankers could leave London thanks to the recently imposed tax raid on their bonuses.

A new tax rule states that there will be a 50% tax on bonuses over £25,000 – a tax which wil initially only be for a year. The Conservatives have said that if they win the General Election they will scrap this new tax.

Although the new tax is predicted to bring in around £5 billion, Johnson believes that it could have a massive detrimental effect on the City and could undermine London’s status as one of the World’s financial capitals.  Read more... (258 words, 1 image, estimated 1:02 mins reading time)

It’s always interesting to see who the richest people in the world are and what they earn. Over at Business Pundit, they have put together the 12 highest earners in 2009 along with what they earned and how they earned it.

Stephan Schwarzman: $702,440,573
Stephan Schwarzman is co-founder of the Blackstone Group private-equity firm. According to CNN money, he took home $702,440,573 (in salary, equity and bonus) in 2009 increasing his total net worth to $7.8 billion.  Read more... (640 words, estimated 2:34 mins reading time)

The Office for National Statistics has released figures showing how bloated the UK’s public sector is. According to the ONS, 23,000 extra workers joined the public sector in the three months to September; over the same period of time, employment rose in the private sector by 29,000 although many of these were part-time jobs.

The biggest public sector recruiter is the NHS which employs 1.6 million people.

6.09 million people are now said to be working for the State – the equivalent of 1 in 5 people of working age.  Read more... (166 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)