May 17, 2006

CANNEX REPORT SAYS BUDGET DIRECT IS THE QUOTE PRICE LEADER FOR GOOD DRIVER, COMPREHENSIVE CAR INSURANCE

Figures released yesterday by research firm Cannex show that over 90% of the time, Australian car insurance provider Budget Direct offered the best quoted price for comprehensive car insurance for average Australian good drivers.

The CANNEX study covered 20 of Australia's leading Car Insurers across 200 scenarios and 2,890 quotes.

Cannex found that not only did Budget Direct provide the best quoted price over 90% of the time when compared to the other 19 companies, but its average quote price also beat the other providers' combined average quoted price by 37.39%.

Budget Direct CEO Michael Weston said the reason Budget Direct commissioned the report was to help consumers cut through the mountain of price-based advertising often in the marketplace.

"Unlike other insurance providers Budget Direct's only interested in insuring good drivers, which means our customers aren't subsidising the cost of high risk drivers. Budget Direct is delighted with the Cannex results, but we're certainly not surprised," Mr Weston said.

Based on information obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the various state transport bodies, CANNEX devised standard male and female driver profiles, which were designed around what CANNEX believes to be an average Australian, good driver.

Ten cars were chosen based on their size class, as outlined by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI). Data from Carsales.com.au encompassing most popular used cars and average age of available cars was combined with this to identify the cars selected.

Ten postcodes were then picked from around Australia, focusing on metropolitan areas with high usage of cars and low usage of public transport. The Northern Territory was excluded from the comparison, as were drivers under 25 and over 65. In each case a standard set of predetermined answers was used to complete the quotes.

The quotes for this research were undertaken from the 27th to the 31st of March, 2006. In each case, Cannex used the company's publicly available online quoting systems to obtain the quote prices for the research. The same online quoting systems used by the general public to check and compare quote prices from the providers.

In the cases where any of the other providers in the research offered a discounted premium if the customer were to buy the policy online, that discounted quote price was used in the comparison, making the Budget Direct result even more noteworthy.

The public is encouraged to read the results and methodology of the Cannex study by going to www.Cannex.com.au/carinsurance

Budget Direct is part of Budget Insurance group, an international insurance group that administers more than 3 million policies and $1 billion in premium income worldwide. In Australia, the company currently issue more than 4,500 policies to Australians every week, offering customers security and long-term protection.

Please read the Product Disclosure Statement before making a decision relating to this product. Contact us for a copy. The insurer is Auto & General Insurance Company Limited.