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News - Britannic defies doomsters

Classé dans : Credit insurance — oguhepyf at 11:50 on Mercredi, novembre 14, 2007

Insurance group Britannic has unveiled a smaller than expected dip in half-year profits, thanks to a late surge in new business.

The company said operating profits for the first six months of 2003 came in at 44m ($70m), down 15% compared with the same period last year, but comfortably ahead of the 38m forecast by City analysts.

The insurer said it had business company doing health insurance new state york from cost savings and stronger than expected levels of new mortgage insurance deduction.

It said it had produced a “robust” set of results, despite “very tough market conditions”.

Britannic also small business group dental insurance it would not be paying a dividend to adult finance gambling insurance internet pharmacy, although it said it had the capacity, under normal circumstances, to make an annual payment of between 20p and 25p per share.

Earlier this year, Britannic was forced to close its with-profits fund to new business and scrap bonuses to some policy holders as a sustained plunge in stock markets squeezed its finances.

It has since sold off some subsidiaries and reduced its exposure to equities in an effort to get back on firm adult finance gambling insurance internet pharmacy footing.

But it said it did not expect to have to cut its equity holdings any further in the light of the recent stock market recovery.


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News - Shopping urges ’spotted in brain’

Classé dans : Credit insurance — security at 10:25 on Mardi, octobre 23, 2007

The moment when a shopper decides to buy can now be clearly seen on a brain scan, thanks to a US study.


Volunteers were scanned as they looked at desirable goods and their prices, and the most active brain areas recorded.


The results suggest different parts of the brain anticipate having the item, and feel the ‘pain’ of preparing to part with money.


The Stanford University study was published in the Neuron journal.


The experiment used an MRI scanner set up to detect brain activity.


Deal or no deal


Pictures of goods such as boxes of chocolates were shown, then a few seconds later, the price flashed up on the screen, before the volunteers were asked to decide whether or not to buy.


The timing meant that the mental battle between desire for the object, and caution about spending, was clearly shown.


This finding has implications for understanding behavioural anomalies, such as consumers’ growing tendency to overspend…when purchasing with credit cards
Stanford University researchers


If the volunteer wanted the product, a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens lit up.


Then, when the price appeared, a high price activated a part called the insula, and deactivated other parts.


In this way, the researchers were able to predict the outcome.


The researchers said the results clearly demonstrated the truth of the principle that purchasing is a mental ‘trade-off’ between the pleasure of acquisition and the pain of paying.


Card trick


They said that the study could reveal how credit cards ‘trick’ the brain into buying more.


They wrote: “This finding has implications for understanding behavioural anomalies, such as consumers’ growing tendency to overspend and under save when purchasing with credit cards rather than cash.”


Dr Alain Dagher, from the Montreal Neurological Institute, said that the brain mechanisms in action were evolved to suit more primitive uses.


He said: “Human financial behaviour is often seemingly irrational, a fact that provides employment for advertisers, casino workers, insurance salesmen, and economists.”


He said that it might be possible to understand more about compulsive shoppers and gamblers by spotting problems in the brain areas revealed by the scans.


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