Subscriptions use to be used for trusty old-school products such as Reader’s Digest, gyms and motoring organisations like the NRMA. Now, it’s more likely you’ll be shelling out for a whole new raft of subscription services which didn’t exist in the good old days. But be warned, the subscription trap is still alive and well and many a profitable business is based on the well-known cons... Read more

A “loyalty tax” occurs when discounts are offered to new customers while longer-term customers pay more. Often this involves increasing premiums at the first and subsequent renewals. As the NSW government’s Insurance Monitor, charged with making sure insurance companies do not charge unreasonably high prices or mislead policy holders, I have had my office research the prevalence of loyalty t... Read more

While there’s no shortage of commentary on the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, I think it’s appropriate a club sharing this magic number should have its say too. In the same way looking up a 50-metre ladder seems further than looking down one the same distance, so too is the difficultly of imagining a world in 2069, compared to the less daunting task of picturing life in 1969 – a... Read more

The headline was click bait to anyone interested in the excesses, or perhaps the quite normal behaviour, of baby boomers given their rampant history with drugs. “A 60-year-old woman was among more than 20 ageing boppers arrested for possessing ecstasy or cocaine on their way to a music festival starring Boy George at Sydney’s Ivy nightclub on the weekend,” ran the Daily Telegraph. Des... Read more

From July 1 there’s a major change in insurance – last year’s premium for home and contents, and for cars, must be displayed on premium renewal notices. Using my powers under NSW legislation, and after a battle lasting several years, I have required this. Seeing the writing on the wall, all insurers and major brands have implemented this charge nationally, affecting almost 10 million hou... Read more

On July 1 2019, the energy market made the biggest changes to electricity offers in a generation. Here is what you need to know. 1. What has changed on July 1? The Government has changed how electricity offers have to be described from July 1, 2019. The Government has created a new ‘default offer’ or ‘reference price’, and all discount offers have to be compared to that. For exampl... Read more

Big changes are coming to the energy market on July 1, but almost nobody knows anything about it. So how does it affect us? What do we need to do to be prepared? What will a good energy deal look like post-July 1? Christopher Zinn speaks to One Big Switch campaign director Joel Gibson, who explains all of what we know so far. Gibson lays out the facts in a way the average consumer will... Read more

If there’s one important area we can be guilty of overlooking, even avoiding, more than our superannuation and that’s life insurance.  And when that life cover is included within your super it’s easy to naively assume both the payouts will be sufficient and premiums good value. With luck and judgement that might be the case but the costs of life cover are going up, we are all getting ... Read more

John Rolfe, News Corp Cost of Living Editor, speaks to 2GB's Ben Fordham on why you should switch your energy before June 30. Click here to listen to the interview or listen to the full show of Sydney Live with Ben Fordham from 17-June below. Read more

Would you open and read a letter if it could save you or your loved ones in the event of a serious accident or worse? I like to think I’d bother, even if it came from my super fund, but most don’t agree as figures around a massive alert being sent out about changes to life insurance have shown. Australian Super sent out notifications to 220,000 members affected by the July 1 changes w... Read more