The sourcing, review, and correction process behind every calculator and guide.
Insurance pricing is genuinely hard to research from the outside; rate filings are public but dense, and carriers rarely explain their own math. This page sets out how we turn that raw material into a number you can plan around, and where the limits of that number sit.
Before a calculator ships, its rating logic is built from public rate filings, industry research from the Insurance Information Institute, and consumer data published by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. We model the same broad factors a carrier prices on, things like age, coverage level, vehicle or home value, health, and location, and every constant behind that model is documented on our public formula and rate-table breakdown rather than hidden inside the code.
New calculators and any change to an existing rate table go through a second pass before publishing: someone other than the person who built the formula checks it against the source data and against a few hand-calculated examples. Chris Terry, who owns and edits this site, signs off on rating logic before it goes live, and does not publish articles under his own name; his role here is oversight, not the byline.
Every tool says it plainly: these are budgeting estimates, not quotes. A real premium needs a carrier, an application, and underwriting, and the number that comes out of that process can land above or below what a calculator shows. We aim for a realistic range for a typical applicant, not a promise.
Rate environments shift and mistakes happen. If a figure looks wrong, the fastest route is the contact page; flag which calculator or article, and what looks off. Corrections get made to the live page, not buried in a changelog nobody reads.
Jessica writes the guides and formula notes on this site, focused on making carrier rating factors easy to compare before you request a real quote. Full background on the authors page.