Direct Line are a very young and proud company and their success over a relatively short space of time has been dramatic. They started in 1985 as a pure car insurance company, only dealing with customers by telephone. Twenty years on they now have 9000 employees, 5 million customers and sell a wider range of products across the whole of europe. They acquired the Green Flag roadside recovery service in 1999. Now they are part of the larger Royal Bank of Scotland group having been acquired, along with Lombard Direct, in 2000.