Hello and welcome to the latest instalment of PB's new weblog, PB Week.

January is traditionally a gloomy month, so we appreciated the raucous laughter caused by an email a work colleague thoughtfully forwarded, informing us of the latest social networking phenomenon to hit the UK. The intriguingly named sexyinsurance.com claims to be the insurance industry’s answer to Facebook – providing somewhere to chat, exchange bad jokes and business tips and of course, network with like-minded individuals.

At the time of writing this the site had a staggering 60 users, the vast majority of whom were American. However, British interest in this odd venture is picking up, with the site’s newsflash service declaring the website to be a “surprise hit” in the UK. Groups that users can become members of once they’ve joined the site include retail commercial agents and brokers and selling auto insurance by phone. Make sure you look out for the video “British woman describes really funny insurance claims”!

Of course, PB’s sister title Insurance Age has had its own discussion board, the Broker Forum, for the last two years, which has proved extremely popular with over 11,000 postings at http://www.insuranceage.com/public/showPage.html?page=104022

On a more serious note, the British Insurance Brokers’ Association has launched its first ever manifesto this week, detailing its campaigns for the next 12 months. Among the operations listed is reassessing the age issue in insurance and providing the over sixties with a greater level of cover. Other issues Biba will promote in 2008 include ensuring individuals and businesses have access to professional advice to aid them in choosing cover, promoting regulation for the sector through greater transparency for commercial customers and promoting the role of a broker. PB is also planning to promote the role of the broker throughout 2008; watch this space for further developments.

We’d like to say thank you to those that were kind enough to visit our Broadwick Street offices for our launch party to celebrate a new era for PB. Sadly, we couldn’t invite the whole industry to our hub because of the limitations of the room sizes here, but those in attendance represented the industry we know and love as you would expect – with much quaffing of champagne, wine and beer!

A special mention goes to Mark Bishop, group communications manager at Allianz, who was the last to arrive and the last to leave. Mark actually refused to vacate the premises until someone found him a limited edition PB-embossed fairy cake in a Tiffany-esque presentation box, leading to our publisher graciously surrendering her own.

If you would like to comment on this blog please e-mail charlie.thomas@incisivemedia.com