Workers with job-based health insurance are bracing for the steepest premium increase in more than two decades. A new survey from benefits consultant Marsh projects that employer health plan costs will rise 8.2% in 2027 even after companies trim benefits to soften the blow, the largest such increase since 2003. For a household already juggling…

Millions of workers pay more for health coverage because they smoke, vape, or otherwise fail a tobacco-related wellness standard their employer’s plan sets. Federal regulators just settled a 12-year argument over exactly when those workers get their money back if they quit and complete a cessation program partway through the year — and the answer…

State Farm is handing back a lot of money to its auto insurance customers, and for most it will arrive without any effort on their part. The company is distributing a record dividend of about $5 billion to policyholders, averaging roughly $100 per insured vehicle. For a household watching every line of the budget, an…

Millions of people who buy their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces are staring down a sharp increase in what they pay out of pocket. The extra subsidies that held premiums down for the past several years expired at the end of 2025, and for many households that change roughly doubles the…

Homeowners insurance has quietly become one of the fastest-rising line items in the household budget, and the pain is not evenly spread. Surveys over the past two years show that a large share of homeowners, roughly one in three or more, opened a renewal notice to find their premium had jumped by more than 20…

For the millions of people who buy their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, the cost math is changing for 2026 — and not in their favor. The enhanced premium tax credits that had held down monthly costs since 2021 expired at the end of 2025, and their disappearance is pushing up…

Homeowners opening their insurance renewal this year are finding a familiar shock: another increase stacked on top of last year’s. The insurance-shopping firm Insurify projects the average U.S. home insurance premium will reach about $3,057 by the end of 2026, a figure that has climbed roughly 46 percent since 2021. That is nearly three times…

State Farm is returning about $5 billion to its auto insurance customers, averaging roughly $100 per insured vehicle, in what the company calls the largest dividend in its more than century-long history. The payments are being sent automatically — most customers do not have to file anything — and, notably, former customers from the covered…

Forty-three and three-tenths percent is the steepest inflation-adjusted rise in the average homeowners insurance premium recorded in any of the four regions the National Association of Insurance Commissioners tracks, measured across 2018 through 2024. The gentlest regional increase over those same seven years was 18.3 percent, also after inflation is stripped out. Both figures come…

The homeowners insurance bill is one of the fastest-rising costs many households face, and it has quietly reshaped the math of owning a home. Premiums are up about 46 percent since 2021 — roughly three times the pace of overall inflation over that stretch — and 2026 is on track to be the fifth straight…