POUND NOTES

Financial fact: A new £10 banknote featuring Pride and Prejudice author Jane Austen has just been launched by the Bank of England. According to the Bank, just over one billion new polymer £10 notes featuring Austen have been printed.

Many students are ‘risking it’ with lack of insurance, survey finds: Nearly half of university students have not insured their valuables as they head back for the new academic year, research suggests. Some 46% of students surveyed do not have home contents insurance and a further 8% are not sure whether their possessions would be covered or not, Co-op Insurance found.

When it comes to reasons for not getting contents insurance, more than a third (34%) put cost as the biggest barrier, while less than a third (28%) have not got round to getting it.

Home owners rush to remortgage: The number of home owners re-mortgaging bounced back in July to reach its highest level since the start of 2017. There were 36,800 people remortgaging, up 7% on June and 10% higher than a year ago, according to UK Finance, which represents banks, building societies and other bodies.

It said that overall, the number of people re-mortgaging over the last year has been at its highest level since 2009.

Average funeral ‘costs over £4,000’: The average funeral in the UK now costs £4,078 – an increase of 4.7% in just a year, according to analysis by SunLife.

For one in nine families, finding the money to pay for their loved one’s funeral caused them financial problems, the research found.

Some borrowed money from friends or relatives, some put it on a credit card or took out a loan, while some worked out an instalment plan with a funeral director.