Consumer Protection

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares49 Views

    How Tariffs Could Cause Car Insurance Costs to Rise

    by

    New tariffs are expected to push up prices of vehicles and car parts, and that could raise premiums as much as 16 percent. Here are some tips on how to try to keep costs down.Add this to worries about the likely impact of tariffs: costlier car insurance.The new tariffs on imported cars, metals and parts announced by the Trump administration are expected to raise vehicle prices by thousands of dollars if they remain in place. And because parts used in auto repairs will also become more expensive, the average cost of automobile insurance is expected to increase.The average annual premium for a full-coverage auto policy was just over $2,300 at the end of last year, according to an analysis by Insurify, an insurance comparison shopping website. The site initially estimated that premiums would increase just 5 percent this year, based on factors like inflation and insurer losses.How much of an impact could tariffs have on car insurance costs?With the addition of the tariffs, Insurify now projects premiums to rise at least 16 percent, or $378, to almost $2,700 on average nationally — about $256 more than without tariffs. The analysis includes the tariffs on steel and aluminum, those on imported cars and those on imported auto parts scheduled to take effect May 3. (Tariffs announced in February on products from Mexico and Canada were adjusted to exempt some goods, including cars and auto parts, that comply with the free trade agreement President Trump negotiated in his first term, according to Insurify. If that exemption is lifted, the increase in automobile premiums could be as high as 19 percent, the analysis found.)An Insurify spokeswoman said the Trump administration’s announcement on Wednesday, pausing double-digit global tariffs for 90 days, didn’t change the company’s projections. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in response to a reporter’s question after the announcement, indicated that the pause didn’t apply to certain tariffs like those on automobiles.“Things that increase the cost of repairs impact prices,” said Robert Passmore, vice president of personal lines with the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, whose members are big insurance companies. About 60 percent of parts used in auto shop repairs are imported from Mexico, Canada and China, the association has said.The price of car insurance has soared in recent years for a variety of reasons, including more claims resulting from driving habits that deteriorated during the pandemic, the use of more expensive technology in cars, and damage from strong storms and hail. While increases had recently begun to moderate, the cost of motor vehicle insurance still rose 7.5 percent in March compared with a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares162 Views

      in Elections

      Chomps Recalls Beef and Turkey Sticks Over ‘Pieces of Metal’ Complaints

      by

      The snack sticks included in the recall were packaged at a single facility in Idaho from Jan. 16 through Jan. 23, the company said.Nearly 30,000 pounds of ready-to-eat beef sticks were recalled on Thursday after consumers complained that they had found metal fragments in them, food safety and company officials said.The voluntary recall affects Chomps Original Beef Sticks, but the company said in a statement posted online on Thursday and Friday that it was including Original Turkey sticks and additional product lots that were produced at Idaho Smokehouse Partners, based in Shelley, Idaho.The Food Safety and Inspection Service, which is under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said in a statement that the agency was informed of “two consumer complaints reporting that pieces of metal were found in the product.”The products subject to the recall were packaged at a single facility from Jan. 16 through Jan. 23, according to Chomps. The Food Safety and Inspection Service said that the recalled items were shipped to retail locations in California and Illinois.The company said the turkey products added to the recall were not included in the 29,541 pounds of recalled beef sticks reported by federal regulators, but it did not provide a weight for the additional items.There have been no confirmed injuries from consuming the products, the Food Safety and Inspection Service said, adding that anyone who is concerned about an injury should contact a health care provider.Consumers who purchased the recalled items are urged to throw them away or return them to the store.Idaho Smokehouse Partners said in a statement on Saturday that after becoming “aware of the two complaints,” it “worked with regulatory authorities on the best way to protect consumers from this issue.”“We are taking this action because we are committed to the highest food safety standards for the consumers of our products,” the company added.Chomps said in a statement on Saturday that the decision to recall the items was “made following a thorough investigation conducted alongside our manufacturing partner” and under the oversight of the Agriculture Department.The company said it “chose to broaden the scope of the recall beyond what was required, ensuring that all product packaged during that time frame was fully accounted for and removed from the market.”Chomps also said that it had added “further safeguards to prevent this from happening again.” More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Buying a Home? Without the CFPB, You Need to Be Your Own Watchdog.

      by

      The C.F.P.B. had kept a close eye on mortgage lenders. But with the bureau hobbled, consumers should take several steps, starting with shopping for the best mortgage rates.House prices are stubbornly high, and mortgage rates remain substantially above their prepandemic level. Now, with the spring home buying season looming, shoppers have a new worry: A major federal consumer watchdog has been hobbled.Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency responsible for overseeing most aspects of the home buying process, consumer advocates say home buyers need to be their own watchdogs.“Now, when you buy a house, you are much more vulnerable to being misled,” said Sharon Cornelissen, housing director with the Consumer Federation of America. “It’s important to be on guard, because guardrails are being taken away.”Buying a home is the biggest financial decision most Americans will make in their lives. The typical home price is about $397,000, according to the National Association of Realtors, but prices are far higher in some parts of the country. In several California counties, for instance, the median price at the end of last year was over $1.5 million, with monthly mortgage payments over $8,000.What role has the consumer bureau played in home buying?The consumer bureau was created after the financial and housing crisis in 2007-8 to streamline oversight of lenders and financial companies serving consumers. Over the years, the bureau has moved to ease the mortgage shopping process by offering simplified forms and educational tools, and has taken action against an array of banks and lenders. In 2022, for instance, the bureau ordered Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 billion for mishandling a variety of customer accounts, including improperly denying thousands of requests for mortgage loan modifications that in some cases led borrowers to lose their homes to “wrongful” foreclosures.On Jan. 17, in the final days of the Biden administration, the bureau reached a settlement with Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corporation for discouraging borrowers from applying for loans to buy homes in majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston. In an email, the lender’s lawyers said Draper and Kramer “considers the matter closed and denies” the bureau’s claims, but chose to settle in part to avoid “protracted legal costs.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      How Consumers Can Protect Themselves With the CFPB on Pause

      by

      Rules on bank and credit card fees, medical debt and payment apps are in limbo. One thing you can do is carefully check your financial statements, one expert says.With the government seemingly stepping back from regulatory duties, consumers may have to act as their own financial watchdogs.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the independent federal agency created after the 2008 financial crisis to shield people from fraud and abuse by lenders and financial firms, has been muzzled, at least temporarily.“Everything is on pause right now,” said Delicia Hand, senior director of digital marketplace with Consumer Reports. “So it’s back on consumers to be extra diligent.” Ms. Hand previously spent nearly a decade in a variety of roles at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, including overseeing complaints and consumer education, before departing in 2022.In early February, the Trump administration ordered the consumer bureau to mostly cease operations. It closed its Washington headquarters, fired some employees and put most of the rest of the staff on administrative leave, and opted not to seek funding for its activities. Several lawsuits are challenging the administration’s actions. On Feb. 14, a federal judge in Washington ordered the bureau to halt firing workers and not to delete data, pending a hearing scheduled for Monday.The administration, however, has already dialed back enforcement — dropping, for instance, a suit accusing an online lender of promoting free loans that actually carried high interest rates. On Thursday, the bureau dismissed a lawsuit that it had brought in January accusing Capital One of cheating customers out of some $2 billion in interest.It’s a stark change for an agency that had been energetic in adopting rules and filing lawsuits aimed at aiding consumers. Under the Biden administration, the bureau moved to reduce or eliminate various fees charged by banks and other financial firms and to remove unpaid medical debt from credit reports, and it fined a major credit reporting bureau for misleading consumers about credit freezes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      California Bill Would Force Insurers to Pay Full Coverage Without Requiring Itemization

      by

      A proposed new law would release homeowners from the onerous process of listing every object lost in a destroyed home.California’s insurance commissioner joined with state legislators on Friday to propose a new law that would force insurers to pay homeowners 100 percent of the coverage for belongings inside destroyed homes, releasing them from the mentally taxing process of listing every object they lost — a requirement of many insurers, and one that consumer advocates say only compounds the trauma.If passed, the legislation would make California the only state in the country requiring 100 percent insurance payouts without such itemization. Similar legislation in Oregon and Colorado following catastrophic fires in those states require insurers to pay 70 and 65 percent of the coverage limit, without an inventory, according to Emily Rogan, a senior program officer for United Policyholders, which supports the rights of consumers.The bill applies only to homes that were destroyed in a disaster and calls on insurance companies to pay a homeowner’s total contents coverage without forcing them to provide an inventory, according to the bill’s sponsor, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, and the bill’s author, State Senator Ben Allen.“The idea here is, we say, ‘Look, this is the insurance plan that you own. You have a total loss, and we’re not going to require you to draw up this itemized list in this moment of incredible pain and vulnerability,’” said Mr. Allen, whose district includes the Pacific Palisades burn zone.Forcing homeowners to account for every last item in their former house is “inhumane,” said Mr. Lara, adding that he was inspired to name the bill “Eliminate ‘The List’” after The New York Times published an article detailing the experience of a homeowner in Altadena, Calif., as she attempted to itemize every T-shirt burned in the flames. “It’s hard to describe the agony in people’s faces,” he said.The proposed law comes a week after Mr. Lara issued a bulletin imploring insurance companies to voluntarily pay 100 percent of the contents coverage for homes destroyed in the recent fires. That notice did not have the force of law, and the commissioner said that “it’s clear that we need to go further,” based both on the Times’s reporting and on the feedback his office has received from distressed homeowners.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      California Asks Insurers to Spare Wildfire Victims ‘the List’

      by

      The state’s regulator wants insurance carriers to pay full policy limits without requiring victims to itemize every object in their destroyed homes.California’s top insurance regulator urged insurance carriers on Thursday to pay policyholders the full amount of the belongings in their coverage without requiring them to itemize every object lost — an undertaking that has burdened thousands of residents whose homes were destroyed by wildfires last month.In a notice that said policyholders are “overwhelmed,” Ricardo Lara, California’s insurance commissioner, gave insurance companies a deadline of Feb. 28 to inform the state agency on whether they would comply.Consumer advocates have long criticized the demand by many insurance carriers that homeowners to make detailed lists if they hope to get their full coverage amount.The stress is compounded in places like California’s burn zone, where many families are scrambling to find new places to live and new schools for their children. The monumental task of remembering all items inside a home that no longer exists is adding unbearable strain, said Michael Soller, the deputy insurance commissioner, in an interview.Mr. Soller said he and his colleagues continue to hear from homeowners about “the agony of having to go through the process of filling out an inventory after you just lost everything.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Samsung Recalls 1 Million Stoves That Started 250 Fires and Killed Pets

      by

      Thirty models of Samsung stoves were part of the recall over fires started by accidental contact.A recall has been issued for more than one million Samsung stoves after hundreds of reports of them being turned on accidentally, leading to fires that injured dozens and killed at least seven pets, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a statement on Thursday.Customers who own one of the 30 recalled models of Samsung electric ranges that the company has been selling since 2013 will be able to get a free set of knob locks or covers to minimize the risk of ignition by accidental contact with humans or pets, the company said in a statement announcing its voluntary recall on Thursday.More than 1.1 million electric ranges were included in the recall. The ranges were involved in about 250 fires, which led to about 40 injuries. Eight of the injuries needed medical attention, and there were 18 instances of “extensive property damage,” the commission’s statement said.When asked exactly how many pets died, and why it took 11 years since the company started selling the flawed ranges before the recall was issued, a spokeswoman for the commission declined to comment, referring to Samsung and the commission’s website for questions.Christopher Langlois, a spokesman for Samsung, said consumers should be mindful of the risks of accidental contact with range knobs for any stove. They should keep their stove tops clean and clear, keep children and pets away, and make sure that stoves are turned off after cooking, the company said in a statement.Samsung is asking people who have aone of its ranges to contact the company to see if they are eligible for the free, self-install knob locks or covers that reduce the possibility of accidental ignition.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Consumer Watchdog’s Funding

      by

      A decision against the agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, could have cast doubt on all of its regulations and enforcement actions.The Supreme Court rejected a challenge on Thursday to the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded, one that could have hobbled the bureau and advanced a central goal of the conservative legal movement: limiting the power of independent agencies.The vote was 7 to 2, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing the majority opinion.Had the bureau lost, the court’s ruling might have cast doubt on every regulation and enforcement action it had taken in its 13 years of existence, including ones concerning mortgages, credit cards, consumer loans and banking.The central question in the case was whether the way Congress chose to fund the bureau had violated the appropriations clause of the Constitution, which says that “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.”Justice Thomas said the mechanism was constitutional.“Under the appropriations clause,” he wrote, “an appropriation is simply a law that authorizes expenditures from a specified source of public money for designated purposes. The statute that provides the bureau’s funding meets these requirements. We therefore conclude that the bureau’s funding mechanism does not violate the appropriations clause.”Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, dissented.The bureau, created after the financial crisis as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, is funded by the Federal Reserve System, in an amount determined by the bureau so long as the sum does not exceed 12 percent of the system’s operating expenses. In the 2022 fiscal year, the agency requested and received $641.5 million of the $734 million available.A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, ruled in 2022 that the bureau’s funding method ran afoul of the appropriations clause.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Transportation Dept. and State Attorneys General Will Look Into Airline Complaints

      by

      Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a new partnership with more than a dozen state attorneys general that aims to improve protections for air travelers.Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday announced a new partnership with more than a dozen state attorneys general to investigate consumer complaints against airlines.The partnership sets up a process for state attorney general’s offices to review complaints from travelers and then pass the baton to the federal Transportation Department, which could take enforcement action against airlines.“The support that’s being offered by state attorney general’s offices means that our capacity to protect airline passengers is expanding,” Mr. Buttigieg said at Denver International Airport, where he appeared with Colorado’s attorney general, Phil Weiser, a Democrat who is among those joining the partnership.The federal-state initiative is Mr. Buttigieg’s latest step aimed at improving protections for air travelers and ensuring that airlines are held accountable when they err. The Transportation Department has issued more than $164 million in penalties against airlines during his tenure, according to the agency. Mr. Buttigieg has also pressed airlines to seat children with their parents for free and to improve the services they offer to travelers who experience lengthy delays or cancellations.The Transportation Department said attorneys general from 15 states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin — had signed agreements to be part of the partnership.The attorneys general from the District of Columbia, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands also have joined, the department said, bringing the total number involved to 18. Of those, 16 are Democrats and two are Republicans.Under federal law, states are generally barred from enforcing their own consumer protection laws against airlines. State attorneys general have pushed for federal legislation that would empower them to take action against airlines, just as they can against companies in other industries.The new partnership does not grant them that power. Instead, their offices would investigate complaints from travelers, and if they determine that federal consumer protection rules may have been violated, they could refer the matter to the Transportation Department under a fast-track process. The federal agency would then review the complaint and could take enforcement action.“The ideal world would be one where states are given formal authority to enforce consumer protection law alongside the Department of Transportation,” Mr. Weiser said. “Congress has failed to act on that thus far, but we are not waiting for action.”In a statement, Airlines for America, a trade group representing the country’s largest air carriers, said it regularly worked with the Transportation Department and state attorneys general to improve the flying experience for travelers.“We appreciate the role of state attorneys general and their work on behalf of consumers,” the group said, adding that it looked forward to continuing to work with them. More