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Car insurance is costing drivers 5% more on average than a year ago, figures have shown.

And it is motorists aged 40-50 who have endured the biggest increases, statistics from Sainsbury Car Insurance found.

While the average insurance premium has gone up 5.24% in the last 12 months, the average rise for drivers aged 40-50 is 7%.

Forget worming pills and a flea collar - a trip to the vet in Britain these days could be about heart surgery, joint replacement, chemotherapy or a host of other cutting-edge procedures.

Britain is one of the few countries in Europe to offer many of these complex treatments: devoted British pet-owners have fuelled a fast-growing insurance market that helps fund care which would otherwise take a big bite out of a bank account.

Research firm Datamonitor has forecast the country’s pet insurance market will grow to almost STG600 million ($A1.28 billion) in 2011 from nearly STG380 million ($A812.14 million) in 2006.

“It wasn’t that big a market a few years ago but now it is growing,” said Kelly Ostler-Coyle, a spokeswoman for the Association of British Insurers. “It is a combination of how much people value their pets and (the fact) that there are more providers in the market.”

At Davies Veterinary Specialists, the largest private clinic of its kind in Europe, a lobby full of barking dogs is evidence of the lengths pet-owners are prepared to go for treatments for their pets, which can easily cost thousands of dollars.

Northwest Consultants said today that income insurance is not a necessity for everyone, but it may be very important for some.

Harry Katz, principal independent financial advisor (IFA) for the firm, suggested that people should think about what would happen to them if they could not work and then decide whether they need income insurance or not.

If, for example, it is likely that a person’s house will be repossessed if they are unable to work then he says income insurance “looks cheap, because contemplating what would happen if you didn’t have it doesn’t bear thinking about”.

However if the person’s partner earns enough to support the household then income insurance may not be something that is needed

Mr Katz advocated “saving money for a rainy day” as the best solution, but said that current spending habits make this an unfeasible solution for most people.

A recent survey from financial services provider Axa found that 20 per cent of Brits currently have income insurance, but high numbers of people in the UK have life insurance policies.

Over five million people in the UK do not know what should be covered by a standard holiday insurance policy, a new report has warned.

Research from MoneyExpert.com found that one in eight people have no idea what to expect in a standard travel insurance policy.

The company added that not knowing the details of insurance cover could mean holidaymakers lose out when they need to claim.

Consumers were unaware of such details as the amount of medical cover they are entitled to and whether they are insured or not if they lose their passport.

Sean Gardner, chief executive of MoneyExpert.com, explained: “With people travelling to increasingly exotic destinations and keen to do ever more adventurous activities while abroad, it’s a worry that many don’t understand what they’ll be covered for.

“Obviously a white water rafting holiday poses more of a risk than a beach holiday in Spain so it’s vital that people consider exactly what activities they’re going to be doing, and then choose their policy accordingly.”

Recently, the STA said that people needed to be aware that there is more risk involved with adventure holidays or long-haul trips, which meant that holiday insurance premiums would be higher for these people.

With Santa and his helpers busy preparing for his annual sleigh ride, online car insurance specialist elephant.co.uk is hoping he doesn’t call for a quote.

His high mileage and high speed driving coupled with his fondness of an alcoholic tipple or two at Christmas would make him a high risk and his premium astronomical.

elephant.co.uk MD, Brian Martin said: “Santa’s mileage is huge, as the crow flies it’s about 64,000 miles around the world, but one of our elephant.co.uk policyholders comes close driving a whopping 60,000 miles. Of course, he does this over a year not in one night like Santa.

“However, Santa has a few hundred years on our oldest policyholder who’s 87 years old, and with a long driving history and no theft or accident claims, I imagine he has a few years no-claims bonus under his belt.”

To get around the world in one night, Santa would need to travel at an average speed of 2,700 mph - and that’s without any stops! Surely a speeding fine is inevitable sooner or later? At that speed, a ban would also be unavoidable. Santa might argue in court that his vehicle is essential to his job and a ban would bring heartache to millions of children all over the world.

Brian continued: “The fastest car we insure is the Lamborghini Murcielago but our underwriters would have a hard time working out an insurance group for Santa’s sleigh. They’re used to rating vehicles by the horsepower of their engines, but where does a sleigh with twelve reindeer power fit in?”

Santa’s tendency to enjoy an alcoholic tipple during his high-speed journey around the world would be another risk to consider when insuring his sleigh. Just think how many kids leave Santa a mince pie and a glass of brandy before they go to bed on Christmas Eve, and never wanting to disappoint, he never leaves any.

An area which was one of the first to model itself as a “safety town” is the most dangerous in the country for accidents, it was revealed.

Slough in Berkshire, which is ringed by traffic lights and speed cameras, topped a most-accident table compiled by Endsleigh Insurance Services.

The Berkshire town had an accident rate 35.7% above the national average in 2007, Endsleigh said.

Slough’s safety promotions go back to the 1960s when it introduced lights timed to be on green so long as drivers stuck to the speed limit. In recent years, the number of lights encircling the town and its industrial estate have grown.

After Slough, Ilford in east London had the most accidents (35.5% above the national average), with Birmingham third (32.9% above).

The most accident-free town or city was Belfast (47.0% below the national average), with Swansea (29.9% below) in second place and Aberdeen (20.6% below) third.

Hull was the place with the most vehicle thefts in 2007, being 143.9% above the national average. Second was Nottingham (82.9% above the national average), with Leeds third (77.8% above).

Endsleigh said that overall, it had seen a 13% fall in motor theft claims across the UK in the last three years.

Swindon had 42.9% fewer cases of theft than the national average, with Norwich (42.3% below the average) and Dundee (38.9% below) also comparatively crime-free areas.

Slough was 35.7% above the national accident average, with Ilford in east London second (35.5% above) and Birmingham third (32.9% above).

A man accused of faking his own death in an insurance scam was ordered by a court yesterday to remain in custody on charges of fraud and acquiring a passport under a false name.John Darwin, 57 - who turned up at a London police station on December 1, years after being declared dead from a 2002 canoe accident - was ordered by Hartlepool Magistrates’ Court to be held in jail until Friday, when he will appear again via video link.

Dressed in a maroon sweat shirt and red track trousers, Darwin, a former prison officer, appeared dishevelled and confused. He spoke twice during the four-minute hearing, responding “That’s correct” when the court read him his full name and saying his date of birth.

Darwin did not enter a plea on the two charges he faces: Dishonestly obtaining an insurance claim of £25,000 (now worth approximately $50,000, BD18,900) in May 2003 by falsely claiming he had been killed, and obtaining a passport under a false name in October 2003.

Darwin’s wife, Anne, 55, was arrested on suspicion of fraud after her flight from Atlanta, Georgia, touched down at Manchester’s airport on Sunday. She had been living in Panama in recent months, but left the Central American country Wednesday.

On Sunday, Mrs Darwin was transferred to Cleveland, 400km north of London, where the Hartlepool court is located.

For a few hours yesterday morning, the Darwins were in same Hartlepool compound. Mrs Darwin was being questioned by detectives about how her husband allegedly hid himself for five years, whether the couple maintained contact after his reported death, and how they apparently came to be photographed together in Panama.

People living in flood risk areas could soon face unaffordable home insurance costs, warns a new industry report.

A poll of 200 insurance professionals reveals 90 per cent expect insurance costs to rise for flood danger zones unless spending on defences is upped.

Currently 2.2 million UK properties are in flood risk areas.

The research by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) also reveals 61 per cent of those in the insurance industry expect competition to push up prices for homes in flood affected areas – as the practice of safe areas subsidising at-risk regions is dropped.

Price pressures have come from the increasing numbers of price comparison sites, explained John Maitz, vice president at CSC, which should lead to firms looking at individual homes’ risks and not the whole market.

“For households on flood plains these developments augur very poorly indeed,” he told Reuters.

This summer’s floods cost over £3 billion with 130,000 claims, including 100,000 home insurance and 10,000 motor insurance claims, figures from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) reveal.

The ABI is now calling on the government to increase its flood defence spending.

“The insurance industry is helping tens of thousands of people affected by flooding this summer, but the government has now failed to play its part,” said Stephen Haddrill, the director general of the ABI.

“Millions of homeowners and businesses around the country have been let down by the government’s failure to commit sufficient money to new and improved flood defences.”

A rise in the number of fraudulent insurance claims in the UK is costing the industry an estimated £1.6bn a year and pushing up the price of cover for honest policyholders.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) said that, between March 2006 and March 2007, one in every 11 claims was in some way fraudulent, reports The Guardian. Insurers uncovered dishonest claims worth £1.3m a day – three times the figure in 2003 – but the ABI said it believed false claims worth an additional £1.6bn were going undetected each year.

Insurance fraud was adding about 5%, or £40 a year, to premiums paid by honest policyholders. However, Nick Starling, director of General Insurance and Health at the ABI, said the industry was getting better at detecting fraud.

Fitch Ratings said its outlook for the UK life insurance sector remains stable as problems persist in spite of strong capitalisation and record new business volumes.But the rating agency said it welcomes the strong new business growth since the UK pension reforms in 2006.

Nonetheless, the ratings agency said it is concerned that this one-off expansion masks high lapse rates that are, in general, not clearly disclosed.

Fitch said for many of the new policies sold, existing policies have been terminated, as policyholders simply switch money from old to new policies.

The UK Financial Services Authority proposed a further shake-up of life insurance distribution in a discussion paper published in June 2007.

This, together with the introduction of US-style variable annuity products, may lead to significant changes for the UK market in 2008 and beyond, the ratings agency said.

On the impact of the volatility in the credit and equity markets in the wake of US sub-prime woes, Fitch said the volatility does not currently appear significant enough to put material pressure on its UK insurance ratings.