Almost £500 million pounds worth of gadgets thrown in the bin since 2006
Thursday, 04 August 2011
• In the past five years, UK adults have spent £15bn on 300 million gadgets
• A third (35 per cent) of these gadgets are no-longer used
• One in five (21 per cent) gadgets are handed down to friends or family
Britain is turning into a mass ‘digital dump’, with £468 million worth of gadgets having been thrown in the bin in the past five years, according to online home insurer swiftcover.com.
Research of more than 2,000 UK adults revealed that more than 300 million gadgets – an average of six per person - worth £15bn, have been bought in the past five years; while a third (36 per cent) of Brits have bought six or more gadgets in this time. Furthermore, 1.6 million Brits have bought more than 21 gadgets since 2006, spending at least £1.5bn in the process.
With gadgets being updated so frequently - in some cases every six months, they are quickly superseded by new models. So much so that a third (35 per cent) of all gadgets bought in the past five years are no longer in use by the original owner, while 27 per cent of people use less than half of their purchases.
James Barclay, home insurance manager at swiftcover.com, said: “We’re most definitely a gadget nation and our thirst for the newest and the best is growing rapidly, apparently regardless of any financial restraints we currently have.”
Of those now not used, the location of 60 per cent of gadgets isn’t known by their owners. Furthermore, according to swiftcover.com 9.3 million gadgets worth at least £500 million have been discarded and thrown in the bin. Interestingly, recycling (19 per cent) or giving the gadget to friends or family (21 per cent) is common for gadget loving Brits while 16 per cent have resold their item to recoup costs or enable the purchase of new gizmos.
The research also highlighted differences between men and women: while 40 per cent of women choose to recycle or hand-down gadgets to friends or family, a third (31 per cent) of men preferred to sell or discard their unwanted gadgets.
Barclay continued: “The lifespan of a gadget is getting shorter and shorter as they are being replaced by more up to date and in many cases, more expensive models. Having the right insurance in place is essential otherwise the risk of losing thousands of pounds worth of gadgets and their content is very real.”
A third (29 per cent) of those who’d bought gadgets in the past five years assumed that their contents insurance covered all of their gadgets. More concerning was that 36 per cent of those surveyed said that they ‘hadn’t insured any gadgets’.
The research was commissioned for swiftcover.com’s home insurance product, which includes £500 cover for digital assets such as MP3s or films stored on a computer or digital media player, alongside competitive cover for gadgets and home entertainment systems.
For more information on home insurance visit swiftcover.com
Ends
Notes to editors
For press enquiries please contact:
Luke O’Mahony or Charlotte Sluter
Brazil (PR agency for swiftcover.com)
020 7785 7383
swiftcover@agencybrazil.com
About swiftcover.com:
Based in Cobham, Surrey and employing more than 1,000 people, swiftcover.com started trading in June 2005 and was born out of a desire to revolutionise the general insurance market by making insurance quick and easy to use.
swiftcover.com offers car, home, travel and pet insurance online, and is the only insurance provider in Britain not to use call centres, which provides cost savings that can be passed directly onto the customer, keeping premiums low. swiftcover.com was named Best Value for Money Car Insurance in the UK in the 2010 Lovemoney.com awards.
This powerful operating model combined with successful marketing and competitive pricing has proven to be a tremendous success. In 2008 swiftcover.com achieved over half a million live policies and in May 2009 sold its millionth policy. swiftcover.com is considered to be one of the fastest-growing online insurance providers in the UK and, as of February 2011, has more than 800,000 policy holders.
In 2007, AXA UK acquired swiftcover.com. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of AXA Insurance UK plc which forms part of AXA Group.
About AXA:
AXA Group is a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, with 216,000 employees serving 93 million clients. In 2010, IFRS revenues amounted to Euro 91 billion and IFRS underlying earnings to Euro 3.9 billion. AXA had Euro 1,104 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2010.
The AXA ordinary share is listed on compartment A of Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol CS (ISNFR 0000120628 – Bloomberg: CS FP – Reuters: AXAF.PA). AXA’s American Depository Shares are also quoted on the OTC QX platform under the ticker symbol AXAHY.
The Group is included in the main international SRI indexes, such as Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and FTSE4GOOD.
Our previous company performance is not a guide to how we may perform in the future.
Any opinions expressed in this media communication are made as at the date of this publication but are subject to change without notice.
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