Women need longer to pay off student debts than men

Women need on average five more years than men to pay off their student debts, according to new figures from the government.

In an answer to a parliamentary question, higher education minister Bill Rammell revealed that female graduates need an average of 16 years to pay off their debts, while men need only eleven.

While the minister stressed that having a degree is worth around £100,000 in lifetime earnings, the Conservatives condemned the situation.

Education spokesman David Willetts said: “This shows that women get a raw deal in the labour market. Women’s earnings are more intermittent and still lower than men’s.”

He suggested that the impact of women taking time away from their careers to raise families was a major factor.

However, National Union of Students women’s officer Kat Stark disagreed.

She said: “Women are taking longer than men to pay off their student loans because they are paid less, not because they are taking time off to have children.”

Tags: student debts, lifetime earnings, question, Labour, union, average, market women, higher education minister

Students urged to check cover

Students departing for university this month have been urged to check that their parent’s home insurance policy provides enough cover before buying their own specialist insurance policy.

Insurer Cornhill Direct explained that many parents do not realise that their home contents policy will usually offer sufficient cover for their children at university, making it unnecessary to buy a stand-alone student policy.

Mike Bishop, of Cornhill Direct, said: “We know from insurance claims we receive from parents that the university lifestyle can leave students vulnerable to theft from their rooms.

“These days, students take a lot of electrical kit to university such as laptops, Mp3 players and mobile phones, so they do need to be insured.”

A survey of 1,000 students also revealed that almost a third of students spend more time drinking and socialising than studying, although 41 per cent admitted that they do often feel guilty about this.

Home insurance policies from Cornhill Direct, Nationwide, HSBC, NatWest, More Than and Norwich Union direct all over cover for possessions in temporary student accommodation.

Tags: specialist insurance, Mp3 players, Than, investment, Mike Bishop, union, insurer, lot

Norwich Union tried to catch out insurance customers

One of the UK’s leading insurance companies, Norwich Union, is targeting customers that hold critical illness insurance policies in order to try and find out whether they have withheld information in the past that could in effect mean that their policies are null and void.

The insurance giant is writing to five thousand critical illness policyholders to try and find out whether they withheld information when they initially took out their critical illness cover.

This is a pilot scheme being trailed by the insurance company, and the policyholders being questioned have been selected at random. However, if the scheme does prove successful then the insurance company is looking to widen the scheme to all two million of its critical illness policyholders. Critical illness cover has already been at the centre of controversy over recent years, as statistics show that around 20% of critical illness claims from customers end up getting rejected due to either incorrect claims on diseases that are no covered, or due to lack of information from the policyholder when the insurance was first taken out.

Critical illness cover is designed to pay out a lump sum to the policyholder in the event that he or she is diagnosed with one of the critical illnesses that are specified on the policy. The policyholder gets to keep the money even in the event that he or she goes on to make a full recovery from the critical illness. However, the level of rejected claims with this sort of cover has resulted in a great deal of negative publicity for critical illness insurance cover.

Norwich Union states that the exercise is to try and update all customer information before any claim needs to be made. One official from the insurance company stated:  ‘We want to be able to clearly advise people . . . how to proceed if they believe they may have missed something off their application form. We feel this is the right approach to try to help customers prevent non-disclosure in the event of a claim.’

Tom Smith
17th September 2007

Tags: union, critical, Insurance, cover, norwich, home, protection, house, illness

Over one thousand jobs to go at Barclays

Over one thousand people employed by Barclays Bank will be losing their jobs in the next three years, as the bank prepares to move its Poole based processing and IT office.

Bank officials have announced that eleven hundred people will have to lose their jobs over a three year period, cutting the workforce at the office from nineteen hundred to just eight hundred. The bank plans to mover operations to a smaller building in the area.

One union official from Unite stated: ‘We are very concerned at today’s announcement which will mean a large reduction of jobs in Poole. Unite does however have robust agreements in place and the bank’s plans are spread over the next three years, so we will be working with the bank to ensure the maximum number of redeployments and voluntary redundancies. We do welcome the news that Barclays will have a new building in the area, albeit smaller, so ending speculation that they may pull out of the area altogether.’

A council official also commented, stating: ‘We are saddened to hear of the job losses at Barclays and will be working closely with them and local agencies to offer as much support as possible to those staff affected. Although the job losses will impact the town in some areas, we will be doing everything in our power to counter the effects. We are continuing to work with Barclays to find suitable sites in Poole that will meet their business requirements and are pleased that they are committed to staying in the local area.’

The Chief Executive of the local council added: ‘The job losses are very regrettable. We will be working with Barclays to set up a strong and helpful network amongst local business and employment organisations to support those affected through information, advice, job searches and retraining opportunities.’

Tom Smith
23rd May 2007

Tags: losses, IT, union, business, cuts, employment, jobs