Personal Finance
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Latest in Personal Finance
ABLE accounts let a disabled beneficiary save without losing Medicaid or SSI
For people with disabilities, saving money has long carried a cruel penalty: accumulate more than $2,000 and the assets can disrupt Supplemental Security Income and...
Hospitals must post their prices online so patients can compare before care
Every hospital in the country is now required to publish what it charges, a rule meant to let patients see a price before they agree...
E. Mishan cookware buyers can file for a payout with no proof of purchase by September 25
Buyers of certain Gotham Steel, Granite Stone and Bell & Howell cookware have until September 25 to claim a payout from a class-action settlement without...
For 44% of homeowners, insurance now costs about as much as the mortgage, and non-renewals have surged
The cost of insuring a home has climbed so steeply that, for many owners, the annual premium now rivals the mortgage itself. A first-of-its-kind national...
Free IRS and AARP programs will prepare a senior’s tax return at no cost
Paying a commercial preparer to file a straightforward retirement-era return can cost well over a hundred dollars, and for a fixed-income household that is money...
Closing an old credit card can shorten your history and drop your score
Closing a credit card that has gone unused feels like tidying up, but it can quietly cost points on a credit score at the worst...
Home insurance premiums keep climbing in 2026, adding to fixed-income costs
Home insurance premiums are projected to rise again in 2026, extending a multi-year run of increases that has turned a routine bill into one of...
You can pull a free credit report from each bureau every week
Every American is entitled to a free credit report from each of the three nationwide bureaus once a week, a right that turned from a...
A new “No Surprises” law bars most surprise out-of-network bills for emergency care
A trip to the emergency room used to carry a hidden financial risk that had nothing to do with the treatment itself. Even at an...
Treasury bills can pay retirees more than a big-bank savings account, no state tax
A short-term Treasury bill has recently paid interest in the neighborhood of what a certificate of deposit offers, while the typical savings account at a...
Oppenheimer brokerage customers who say idle cash earned too little can file for part of a $70 million settlement by September 17
Oppenheimer & Co. has agreed to pay $70 million to settle claims that it shortchanged customers on the interest owed for cash sitting idle in...
Long-term-care insurance can spare a healthy spouse from spending down savings for nursing care
When one spouse needs years of nursing care, the bill does not stop at that spouse’s share of the savings. Long-term care is one of...
A Hartford insurance unit would mail $11 million in refund checks for a premium-tax overcharge, with no claim to file
A former Hartford life-insurance business has agreed to an $11 million settlement over premium-tax charges it allegedly miscalculated, and eligible policyholders would not have to...
State Farm is returning $5 billion to auto customers, about $100 a vehicle, and former customers get paid too
State Farm has begun paying out $5 billion in cash to its auto insurance customers, the largest dividend in the company’s century-plus history. The payments...
Buy-now-pay-later loans now appear on credit reports and can move a retiree’s score
Buy-now-pay-later loans, long invisible to the credit system, have started appearing on credit reports — a shift that can push a retiree’s score up or...
Billions in forgotten money sits with state treasurers, and one free search finds it
Tens of billions of dollars in forgotten accounts, uncashed checks and dormant balances sit in the custody of state treasurers, waiting for their rightful owners...
Airlines must automatically refund cash for a canceled or badly delayed flight when you decline a rebooking
A canceled or badly delayed flight no longer forces travelers to fight for their money or settle for a voucher they never wanted. Under federal...
A free national database can uncover a deceased relative’s forgotten life-insurance payout
More than $10 billion in life insurance and annuity money has been reunited with families through a single free service since 2016, and the sums...
Sentara’s termination notice to Anthem could push up to 380,000 Virginians out of network on January 1
Nearly 380,000 Virginians could wake up on January 1 to find their doctors and hospitals suddenly out of network, after Sentara Health sent Anthem Blue...
State Farm is returning $5 billion to drivers, about $100 a vehicle, applied automatically this summer
State Farm has begun sending $5 billion back to its auto insurance customers this summer, the largest single dividend in the mutual insurer’s century-plus history....