Confused.com Reveals Why Single People Are ‘Mating’ With Friends For Life

A new Confused.com report, entitled ‘Friendships, Finance and the Future: The rise of Singledom in the UK’, has revealed that almost three quarters* (72%) of singles have friends who will be friends for life, and four in five say that friendships last longer than romantic relationships. Men in particular are saying no to marriage. Just three in ten single men think they will ever get married, and 48% think single people are more fun.

This new report also identifies a new demographic in UK society: FLAPers (Financially Liberated and Positively Single). This is a new breed of single people who are turning the tables on the stereotype of the sad singleton and embracing the adventure and spontaneity. Like the flappers of the 1920s, who threw away their corsets and sought independent lifestyles, these FLAPers are celebrating a new era of positivity and empowerment in the wake of troubled times.

Experts at Future Poll, the research division of The Future Laboratory, predict that the future could see friendships among single people recognised as relationships that work while marriage increasingly fails. Laws will protect best friends and single people might formalise their friendships by entering into ‘mate-trimony’ agreements with their best friends. Relationship status on passports and census forms could include ‘mate-trimony’ as an option, next of kin will automatically be friends, and more and more singles will protect their friendships with life insurance – 59% of singles would consider insuring the life of a friend if they bought a house together.

As people stay single for longer, they are realising how much they rely on their friends for the things traditionally provided by a partner. Friends offer a shoulder to cry on: 45% of singles turn to their friends first for emotional support. Friends know each other inside out too: 30% of singles say the person who knows them best in life is a friend.

Singles even trust their friends, rather than family members, with their online secrets. Twice as many singles would rather have a friend see what they’ve been looking at online than a family member. 18 – 24-year-old singles would much rather that friends see their web-browsing history (62%) than family members (18%), probably because their friends would be less shocked.

The research found that 29% of single people in the UK have lent money to a friend in the last 12 months and in the West Midlands, 35% of singles have lent friends money in the last year. More than one in four single people would go to their friends first if they needed money urgently, and men (31%) are more likely to do so than women (23%).

To many single people, marriage is viewed as an old fashioned idea. 21% of single men think marriage is out-dated while 34% of single women think marriage lacks the value it once had.

Mike Hoban, Chief Marketing Officer at Confused.com said: “The need for us all to prepare for the worst, and protect our loved ones, is paramount. There is an opportunity for life assurance companies to reflect the rich diversity of our society and meet the needs of more people by making available products and services which reflect the value that people put on personal relationship outside of traditional family and marriage ties.”

Via EPR Network
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Confused.com Reveals A New Way Of Living For Young Singles

Confused.com has revealed that the continued property crisis, coupled with a rise in the number of singles in the UK, is resulting in the creation of alternative ‘family’ units and giving birth to the MOSH.

This type of MOSHing does not include head-banging to metal music; it’s all about embracing the ‘Multiple Occupant Shared Home’ and challenging the traditional household structure.

Confused.com has worked with futurologists at Future Poll, the research division of The Future Laboratory, on the new study into the friendship and finances of single people in the UK, which explores the growing trend for best mates to create alternative ‘family’ units.

The Confused.com research found that 57% of singles have a friend they trust enough to buy a house with.

Furthermore, 59% of singles would consider protecting their friendships with life insuranceif they bought a house together.

Single-person households are projected to increase by 163,000 per year – from 6.8m in 2006 to 10.9m in 2031 – and singleton households could outnumber any other kind of household by 2031, according to the Government Office for Science. This shift in behaviour among young people will mean MOSHing is tipped to become mainstream over the next decade. The Confused.com report predicts that MOSHing will become a lifestyle of choice for men and the younger generation of singles, and so it will be vital to protect these co-dependent lifestyles with some form of insurance.

Men are already MOSHing more than women. Twice as many single men (10%) have bought a house with a friend compared to just 5% of single women surveyed. Some 44% of men would be comfortable owning a property with a friend, compared with 38% of women. Young people are native MOSHers, according to the Confused.com research. More than six in 10 (64%) single 18–24-year-olds have friends they trust enough to buy a house with, compared with around half (47%) of those over 55.

Young MOSHers also have more friends they would trust enough to buy a house with: 18–24-year-old singles have 36%, while those over 55 have just 21%.

Social networking is accelerating friendship and young people are connecting to more people and sharing things in a way that would be impossible in their busy offline lives. Their constant connection to their friends online means that they increasingly want to make these online communities concrete.

Mike Hoban, Chief Marketing Officer at Confused.com explains how this will impact insurers: “Insurance companies are increasingly using social media to communicate with young audiences and the next stage is to recognise, and respond to, the real-life social networks which are structuring the new ‘urban families’ as friends set up home together, supporting one another both financially and emotionally. As our report demonstrates, friendships are increasingly important to independent single people in the UK and a financial industry that caters for single people and couples alike is one that is prepared for the future of personal finance.”

The report, entitled ‘Friendships, Finance and the Future: The Rise of Singledom in the UK’, can be downloaded here:
www.confused.com/life-insurance/articles/~/media/docs/friendships-finance-and-the-future.pdf.

Via EPR Network
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Confused.com Launches New Zombie Video

Confused.com has launched a new video application called ‘Home Sweet Zombie’, in order to increase awareness of the importance of home insurance and raise its social media profile.

The video requires the user to enter their postcode. After doing so, the hometown of the user becomes swamped with a virus and zombie characters appear to make their way to the user’s home making use of Google Maps technology.

In order to demonstrate the need for home insurance, the video app uses the customer’s name and postcode to personalise the experience and make them feel as though their local area has been invaded by zombies. As the video continues, a shot of the zombies with a bomb is shown and the video comes to a climax as the customer’s home is blown up.

The last shot is Confused.com characters holding a message ‘Make sure you get your home insurance through Confused.com’.

The video forms part of the on-going social media strategy of Confused.com, and reinforces the importance of having a home insurance policy in place to make sure possessions are covered against damage and theft.

The video app can be accessed via the Confused.com website here and also Confused.com’s Facebook page. But to widen the campaign further, Confused.com will be sending an email to 1.2 million of its customers, each with a personalised video.

This app also coincides with Confused.com’s Nectar promotion where customers can collect 1,000 Nectar points with every home, pet, van, bike and car insurance policy bought through Confused.com. Customers who buy life insurance will receive 5,000 Nectar points.

The app aims to encourage people to think about the need for home insurance and customers can collect 1,000 Nectar points by simply buying this product through Confused.com.

Speaking about the video app, Mike Hoban, Marketing Director at Confused.com, said: “We’re looking to get people talking about this video app and make people understand the importance of having home insurance. We want to create customer engagement and via Facebook and Twitter we want people to share and like this video, building essential relationships with our customers.

“The aim of the video is also to create a personalised touch for our customers to ensure they know how important they are to us and how important it is to ensure their house is protected against unforeseen circumstances.”

Gareth Kloet, Head of Home Insurance added: “We want to ensure that people have home insurance. By using a comparison site like Confused.com it means we do the hard work for you and the added benefit of this exciting video app is that customers can be directed straight to the site by the click of a button.”

The ‘Home Sweet Zombie’ video app can be found at www.confused.com/news-views/games/home-sweet-zombie.

Via EPR Network
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