First company to sell Insurance via SMS

The service is available through a regular mobile phone and promises to provide quotes to your phone within 60 seconds. The company started selling Hastings Direct-branded travel insurance through this new channel late yesterday afternoon and plans to expand into other forms of general insurance in the future.Reports biosmagazine

Text2Insure was founded in June 2004 by three entrepreneurs, Nicholas Thurlow, Graham Wright and Malcolm McLean, and is backed by broker Hastings Insurance Services. Launched in 1997, the latter offers car, motorcycle and home insurance and now has over 750,000 policyholders, over 1300 staff and handles in excess of 3 million enquiries each year, according to the company.  www.text2insure.co.uk