What’s the accident “penalty” on your auto insurance? A 44 percent increase to your premium, according to a new study conducted by InsuranceQuotes.com. For a driver with an average-priced policy ($841), that’s a $370 price hike. More incentive to drive very carefully. The average comes with a whole wheelbarrow full [Keep reading]
(NOTE: I wrote this piece for Credit.com recently. Here’s the rub: Car sales are at record highs, fueled in part by car friendly loan terms. If cynics are right, that will eventually end badly and there will be a) a flood of used cars on the market from buyers who [Keep reading]
You’re going to see a lot of headlines today about a nasty ransomware program named KeRanger that tries to extort Apple / Mac users by encrypting their files and charging ransom for the unscrambling key. Infected users must pay the virus creators today or risk losing use of their data. Here’s [Keep reading]
Crime does pay! About $28,744 per year, figures researcher Larry Ponemon. But that’s a quarter of the income that security pros make, so mommas, don’t let your babies grow up to be hackers. Hackers’ hourly rate suffers too. Computer criminals make about $40 an hour, compared to a little more [Keep reading]
The Internet, and the sharing economy, have changed the way we buy everything — from books to mattresses to “hotel rooms” to taxi rides. Now, it’s the insurance industry’s turn. A series of startups promise disruption of this product consumers love to hate. (Sorry, Flo.) Even well-known author Dan Ariely [Keep reading]
American mortgage holders are optimistic that equity in their homes is rising, and that’s helping fuel— for better or worse — a huge increase in home equity lending, this has homeowners who are over 50 exploring their options and beginning to think about equity release and whether or not it [Keep reading]
There was much hand-wringing recently when Hasbro announced that it would make the popular board game Monopoly cashless. Now, players will use something more like credit cards. “My kids won’t learn math,” yelled parents everywhere, in perhaps the biggest indictment ever of the way Americans learn math. In [Keep reading]
I often think of FIOS as the good guy in paid TV – mainly because consumers seem genuinely happy with the product. It’s a little pricey, but the Internet speeds and channel choices seem to satisfy most people. More important, whenever FIOS arrives in a neighborhood, prices go down and [Keep reading]
If a hacker was “sharing” your Netflix account, would you know? And should you care? Security firm Symantec recently warned that around the world, hackers have created a thriving black market in stolen — well, let’s call it “shared” — video service accounts. It’s easy to see how this happens. [Keep reading]
Cable TV prices are high, and rising faster than most other prices. But you knew that. What you probably didn’t know is that the average cable bill would only be $35 per month, as opposed to $99.10 per month, had pay TV prices tracked with inflation during the past two [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan