Direct Line established high levels of recall among consumers. In September 2014, the brand worked with Saatchi and Saatchi to relaunch its advertising, using Hollywood actor Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolfe, a Mafia style 'fixer'. The company had one million customers after eight years. The company expanded with a series of new offshoots in the 1990s. In 1995, a Spanish offshoot, Linea Direct, started offering motor insurance in Spain. They expanded into travel insurance in 1996, pet insurance in 1997, and Direct Line Breakdown started offering breakdown insurance in 1998. Their non general insurance products umbrella Direct Line Financial services launched their
Insurance in the United States difficult-to-insure risks, to prevent them from undermining each state's ability to regulate its insurance market. Although experienced insurance brokers are well aware of what risks an admitted insurer will not accept, they "must" document a "diligent effort" at actually shopping around a risk to several admitted insurers (typically three, who will promptly reject it) before applying for coverage with a surplus line insurer. To relieve insurers and brokers of that tedious and time-consuming chore, many states now maintain "export lists" of risks that the state insurance commissioner has already identified as having no coverage available whatsoever from any admitted insurer