But a new company, Life-Search, aims to subvert all that high-charging nonsense.Quite simply, Life-Search promises to undercut the price of any policy sold on the market. If you can find a cheaper quote, it will beat it.For example, a non-smoking female aged 40 could obtain cover that pays out pounds 200,000 in the event of death within 20 years for pounds 28.35 a month. Norwich Union, by contrast, would charge pounds 52.80 for an identical policy. Call Life-Search on 0845 6030401.n Finding a decent home for your savings where you also receive relatively speedy access is hard to achieve.In recent weeks, the new Egg Savings Account has been in the spotlight, thanks to the 8 per cent gross rate of interest it has paid savers since its launch in October This rate is now set to drop to 7.25 per cent. Despite this cut, Egg, which is owned by Prudential, is still a highly attractive place for your savings.Even so, almost nine out of 10 can’t be bothered to shop around for the best rate on a monthly basis, and 85 per cent say they haven’t done so in the past five years.

Only 7 per cent do so every three years.For savers who prefer not to open a savings account only for the initially attractive rate to start sinking below its competitors a few weeks later, there are two options.One is Virgin Direct. The company’s new instant-access Deposit account offers a rate of interest guaranteed not to be more than 1 per cent below the UK clearing-bank base rate – until December 2001. Right now, that means 6.25 per cent gross, though that may fall shortly.Alternatively, First Active, best known for its highly flexible mortgages, has launched a Fairdeal account, promising the average of the 20 highest- paying instant access accounts on the market. To spice things up, First Active is taking the average interest of the top 20, paid on balances over pounds 10,000 – where rates are usually highest, currently 7.16 per cent gross – but in Fairdeal’s case, applying it to a minimum balance of pounds 1,000. Call 0800 558844 for details.n Finally, if Christmas shopping has caused near-terminal damage to your credit card, it is time to switch. Capital One Bank, a leading US card issuer, offers two alternatives. One is a card with a 6.9 per cent APR introductory rate until 31 July The other is a rate of 9.9 per cent APR until 2001.

Both cards have the usual 54 days’ worth of interest- free credit And they charge no annual fee, unlike many of their rivals This one is a no-brainer Call 0500 200400.. MEMBERS OF a building society could benefit by an average of almost pounds 2,200 compared to a bank, by saving and holding a mortgage with a mutually- owned institution. But those likely to gain the most from a mutual are younger building society members with larger sums to save and bigger home loans. This is the verdict of a series of surveys which also show building societies dominate the best-value tables for mortgages and Tessas.
In the past three years, nine out of the 10 cheapest lenders have been building societies, according to a report by the Research Department, an independent financial information provider.A separate survey by MoneyFacts showed that a borrower with Coventry Building Society, the cheapest lender, would have paid pounds 3,985 in interest over one year on a typical pounds 50,000 interest-only variable-rate loan.