There are ways to lower your car insurance premium besides raising deductibles. Kemper Auto and Home Insurance, for instance, will shave $50 off premiums for auto policies bought at its Web site (www.kemperinsurance.com) Insure.com says. Kemper also will give a 10 percent discount to four-year college graduates under age 30. Horace Mann Insurance offers discounts starting at about 8 percent to teachers who belong to state education associations or the National Education Association. The discounts also are available through Horace Mann subsidiaries Allegiance Insurance Co. and Teachers Insurance Co.
MasterCard is testing a "tap and go" credit card in the Orlando area. Customers don't have to swipe a card or hand it to a cashier, but just tap the PayPass on a PayPass reader at participating merchants. The radio technology charges the purchases to users' accounts. No signature is required for most purchases under $25.
Teen girls have become the audience of choice for many filmmakers, BusinessWeek reports. It says 10- to 18-year-old females flocking to the ticket window is good news for studios, which have watched other parts of their audience fragment or drift away to the Web.
Although electronic airline tickets have virtually eliminated the loss of plane tickets, it is next to impossible to board an airplane without identification. So travelers should take steps to prevent ID loss and theft. Keep all valuables and documents in a pouch near the front of your body, and be aware of people around you. Most important, make copies of IDs, passport and other key documentation and carry them separately from the actual IDs.
Want to have lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett? The opportunity will be auctioned off again this year on eBay late this month, with proceeds going to a social services group that helps the homeless in San Francisco. Last year's auction produced 141 bids, and the winner paid $250,100 for the lunch date.
