Easter DIY disasters cause spike in insurance claims

DIY disasters will cause a spike in home insurance claims over the Easter weekend, AXA warned yesterday.

The home insurance provider said DIY accidents will peak on Saturday morning, with spilled paint as the prime suspect.

Paint spillages in past years have accounted for 40% of Easter accidents.

Other Easter mishaps include accidental holes in walls and ceilings (28%), broken furniture (23%), and water damage (19%).

Worryingly, 14% of claimants have caused a fire.

One in five of those taking out the toolbox this weekend will have an accident, AXA said, and claims will cost insurers an average of £900 each, with some accidents costing as much as £10,000.

Furthermore, a number of DIYers will end up nursing injuries in hospital.

Nick Kidd, AXA head of home insurance, said: “We’re a nation of enthusiastic DIYers but people need to be careful.

“As well as all the other preparation that’s essential for a good DIY job, it’s worth checking out whether you’ve got suitable insurance in place.”

Twitter-focused UK start-up launches with big media clients

LONDON - Warner Music and Virgin Media are among several brands working with a start-up agency called Twitter Partners, which plans to offer services from consultancy to customer insight, CRM and reputation management.

Twitter Partners is led by former Nielsen president and angel investor Peter Read and is a privately held, London-based firm.

Read has assembled a line-up of well-known digital figures to advise the company. They include former Yahoo! vice-president Toby Coppel, Last.fm founder Stefan Glaenzer, LoveFilm co-founder Saul Klein and Lastminute.com founders Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman.

One of Twitter Partners' first tasks is a campaign promoting the release the animated band Gorillaz' upcoming documentary titled 'Bananaz'.

Other clients include Universal Pictures, Lionsgate, Knitting Factory, Paramount and Comedy.com.

Twitter Partners will offer the brands a number of services, including customer insight, profiling and segmentation, CRM, buzz monitoring, virtual focus groups and corporate reputation management.

It will initially work on a consultancy basis but plans to expand into products and automation in the future.

According to twitter Partners' website, it has already lined up 11 agency partners, including Razorfish and Unanimis, and is "building a suite of apps, tools and services to help brands, media companies, and celebrities harness the power of the Twitter ecosystem".

The Twitter 'ecosystem' is now inhabited by more than 7m users but Twitter itself has yet to find a secure revenue model. The company houses approximately 30 staff, mostly engineers, and has been more focused on technical than commercial development.

Twitter is currently being courted by many firms, including Google, which was reported to be in "late-stage" acquisition talks with Twitter last week, though it now appears negotiations are at a much earlier stage.

A number of brands and celebrities are already well-established on Twitter, including Stephen Fry, Starbucks and Comparethemarket.com, which recently ran a campaign asking Twitter users if they would like to appear on a testimonial page on its mascot's website.

Sainsbury's insurance warning for cost cutters

As the credit crunch continues to grind on, Brits have been coming up with ways to cut back on costs in a bid to save money.

According to a study conducted by Sainsbury's Bank, people are going so far to scrimp on outgoings that they are actually reducing insurance cover and some are cancelling policies altogether.

However, the bank has warned that insurance should be viewed as a necessity, not a luxury.

Sainsbury's Home Insurance manager Neil Laird explained: "It's inevitable that people are going to be looking to make cut backs, but it's a real concern when those cut backs leave them vulnerable to far greater expense down the line."

In a bid to ensure that people are adequately covered at an affordable cost, given the current economic climate, Sainsbury's is to launch a '30-30-30' offer, which could see customers getting a discount of 30 per cent on contents and building cover, in addition to two lots of £30 shopping vouchers.