Unless you have been on Mars for the past year you will have noticed that there has been a emphatic rise in fuel prices. This has caused many drivers to economize where they can and has resulted in many breaking down as they run the cars dry with only fumes in their tanks.

According to Britannia Rescue the car insurance and breakdown cover specialists, there has been a 10 percent increase since last year in the number of break downs with the number standing at 340,000 from the end of April the last three months.

Ms Holyer, a chief spokesperson for the firm, said that the increased cost of living caused by the credit crunch has hit everyone in the country hard, but she warned drivers that the costs of repairing a car that has been running on empty and has damaged the fuel pump, far dwarfs the costs of filling a tank up

It has been found by The Financial Services Authority that insurance comparison sites have been displaying data and deals that are out of date.

An examination of insurance comparison sites took place to see what these, often, controversial websites are up to. The findings were that the use of the broker data was valid, but how the information about policies was conveyed to customers was skew.

In recent year’s, insurance comparison website have flourished with the consumers demand to find the best deal on insurance as there are so many options out there. Around 30 million car insurance quotes have been made in the last year on these sorts of sites; this is a phenomenal figure.

The Financial Services Authority, studied the data given out on these sites and found that information, like compulsory excess levels, was not included in the price, or even erroneous.

BIBA (British Insurance Brokers’ Association) were all for the review because a report done asking people who had used insurance comparison sites what they thought showed 84 per cent thought the accompanying information to the polices was not apparent enough.

If your pet gets injured, and if you don’t have pet insurance, then you can pay up to £9,000.

The Pet Insurance company, Saga, say one of the biggest and most common threats is if a dog has to be treated for ligament damage.

Saga also claim that treating a cat that has been in a road accident, on average, costs £705, but amazingly can be as much as £5k, meaning a big ask for pet owners without pet insurance.

Research carried out by Saga found that 1 in 7 pet insurance claims were due to an actual accident, as opposed to them getting ill.

Strangely enough, it was found that cats living in the Midlands are most ham-fisted, with 26% of pet insurance claims being attributed to cats. Generally, I think the point is to always take out pet insurance for your pet because they are vital in covering the cost of vet’s fees that you wouldn’t have been expecting.

Online insurance firms and all in the insurance market sector are conscientious about the prospect of fraud and vigilant toward taking measures against it.

British Insurance Brokers’ Association executive, Graeme Trudgill, said: “If it’s found out that someone is being fraudulent - and they will be found out because you have to really look into these claims - then questions will be asked.”

The Financial Ombudsman is a court that is pinnacle in deciding the doom of fraudsters, when it comes to insurance. Circa one billion pounds were paid out last year purely to in aid of fraudulent claims. The downside of this affects us all, because the insurance companies paying out those claims have to put up all their customer’s insurance premiums.

In July 2007, uSwitch carried out a study that revealed some horrifying facts. First of those is that two and half million people could be in such a position, that their car insurance is no longer valid because when registering, they had not given significant information about their insurance. Incredibly, basic details were lied about the most, with one and half million lying about address and age!

There is a huge amount of competition in the comparison website market; nowadays it is a case of comparing the comparison sites themselves, taking up more time finding the best deal. As well as this, comparison web sites have had the finger pointed at them for misusing the information they retrieve through the consumer when using price comparison sites.

Included in misusing the customer details is checking which of the offers pays them the highest commission and then manipulate you to buy it. There have also been repetitive calls to consumers and cases of phone numbers and contact information being sold on to third parties.

The formation of a non-obligatory code of practice for comparison sites has been established to regulate these problems, as set out by the Resolution Foundation.

The good news is that the trouble mentioned is not typical of every comparison site. AsRecommended, which is most known for its magazine side of its business, has recently focused more of its time into a website and is a great example of one of the useful and honest comparison sites.

The end product of these regulations will be constructive in giving users and consumers an honest deal and a fair comparison.