Category Archives: Business & Money

Pensions misery for millions

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Millions of Britons expect their pensions to be worth less than they expected when they took the policies out. And more than eight out of ten Britons contributing to a pension, some 16.7m people, expect a shortfall in the value of their policies when they retire.

If people’s worst fears are realised, pensioners will be £159bn worse off. The headline figure sounds dramatic but reflects a growing gulf in the actual value of pension plans against the projected value when they first took them out. Continue reading →

How to take on the cowboys

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My problems began with a cracked pipe under the kitchen sink. Without the tools or expertise and with a large number of guests due for dinner, I reached for the phone book to find a plumber willing to do a weekend callout. Big mistake.

I gulped as I agreed to the company’s eye-watering charge of £80 per 30 minutes. Even my accountant does not charge that much, but I was desperate and I thought it was a simple job. Second big mistake. Continue reading →

Escape to the country

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A shortage of suitable property may have driven up urban prices over the past few years but a mass exodus from towns across the UK is likely to do the same for country homes.

New research shows that more than a quarter of metropolitan househunters are trying to find properties well away from larger urban areas.

Some 27% of would-be buyers are trying to get away from City pollution and noise to find some rural calm, according to the survey by assertahome.com. Continue reading →

Insurers turn to lie detectors

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Insurance companies are turning to technology in a multi-million pound fightback against fraud. Wrongful claims cost insurers about £3bn a year and now companies are investing in industry-wide IT systems that analyse data to detect patterns in the claims submitted.

Other insurers are turning to lie-detector systems and psychological analysis to uncover when policyholders aren’t telling the truth. Continue reading →

Managers need advice on IT

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Senior managers in firms need help with their IT decisions if their businesses are going to benefit in the information age, says a new book on IT Management, “Tricks of the Trade”. According to its author, Guy Dresser,  senior managers are not making the best use of information technology because of their lack of IT knowledge, expertise and skills. They do not understand precisely what it is they need, so they are not making the best IT investment.

“Consultants and software get blamed for the problems because the people responsible for IT – the financial directors – do not know their IT market,” said Dresser. Continue reading →