The weather may have been awful over the Easter weekend, but that's not stopped the PR machines at various insurance companies from rolling out some emotional, fluffy press releases this week, writes Charlie Thomas, reporter, Professional Broking.

It was a case of life in the fast lane for Professional Broking's reporter Charlie Thomas this week, as she sped around Bedford Aerodrome in (among others) a Porsche 911 JP3, Jaguar XKR and a Renault Clio Cup car.

I assume Andrew Torrance is not an Everton or Tottenham fan (both teams crashed out of the UEFA cup following penalty shoot-outs last night) as he was in a very good mood this morning (Thursday 13 March), writes Charlie Thomas, reporter, Professional Broking in the latest PB Week. While this week Dane Douetil, chief executive of Brit, was hit by talk of potential sub-prime losses following the announcement of his results (despite a rise in pre-tax profits to £191m), and Barry Smith chief executive of Fortis revealed profits had been hit by £62.7m following the floods compared to 2006, Torrance heralded a "pleasing" set of results from Allianz in 2007 - although he was coy about his firm's reserve releases.

The amounts being spent and raised by insurers and brokers on acquisitions hit mind boggling proportions this week after Chris Giles, chief executive of Giles Insurance Brokers, revealed he has been given access to around £500m to grow his business.