Editorial policy

Who writes and who reviews

Every published page carries a named author, not a faceless byline, and each of our contributors is a real, verifiable person with a public profile. You can see the full roster, each person's role and areas of expertise, and their external verification links on our authors & reviewers page.

We are deliberately explicit about credentials, because on a topic that affects your money and your protection, "who is telling me this?" is the most important question. A contributor who is not a licensed insurance agent is clearly marked as such on their profile and is limited to research and editorial work. Our rate, coverage, requirement, and legal content is reviewed — and increasingly written — by a licensed Property & Casualty agent whose National Producer Number (NPN 7694718) is published and independently verifiable through the NIPR producer-lookup. Our software enforces this distinction: a contributor profile cannot claim a licensed credential without carrying a real, verifiable NPN, and it cannot present a non-licensed writer as a credentialed authority.

How we build a page

Our process is designed so that a wrong or unsourced number is hard to publish by accident. Every page that makes a numeric claim goes through the same pipeline:

• Read the primary document. We pull the carrier's actual filed rate manual from the state's SERFF filing system — the same document the insurer had to submit and justify to the regulator — and read it directly.
• Transcribe by hand. A researcher transcribes each factor cell by cell. We do not scrape, estimate, round to "about," or copy figures from other comparison sites or aggregators.
• Verify adversarially. A second pass re-reads the same source and confirms every value appears verbatim under its stated table and row, specifically to catch transcription and attribution errors.
• Attach provenance. Each figure is stored with its source name, the SERFF filing tracking number, and the date we captured it — and our software will not admit a figure that lacks them.
• Pass the automated gate. A content check runs on every change and blocks publication if a page cites an unsourced figure, falls below our depth and citation standards, or has not been signed off by a licensed reviewer.
• Licensed review. A licensed P&C agent signs off before the page can index.

The licensed-review gate

Licensed review is not a rubber stamp at the end. A page that makes a rate, coverage, requirement, or legal claim stays unpublished to search engines until our licensed reviewer has signed off on it. He checks that every transcribed figure is represented accurately, that coverage explanations reflect how the coverages actually work, and that state-requirement and legal guidance matches current law. This is enforced in software, not just policy: an un-reviewed page is held back automatically.

Accuracy and sourcing

We cite primary, authoritative sources — state rate filings, state insurance departments, federal datasets such as those from NHTSA and the FTC, and industry bodies like the NAIC and III — and we show the source and capture date on every figure. We do not present estimates as facts, and we do not cite other comparison sites or aggregators as authorities. When a figure is specific to one carrier's filing in one state, we say so, rather than presenting it as a market average. Our full sourcing process is described in our methodology.

Advertising independence

FastAutoQuote is a free service, and we may be compensated when you request a quote through our forms or connect with an insurer. That compensation never changes the sourced facts on a page, the inputs to or the output of the Fast Auto Score™, which carriers we describe, or how we describe them. The research and review teams work from the primary documents, not from any commercial arrangement, and a carrier cannot pay to change how its filed factors are reported or to be described more favorably. Commercial relationships and editorial content are kept structurally separate.

Freshness and update cadence

Insurance rates and requirements change, so every page carries a "last reviewed" date, and the figures are tied to the specific filing edition and effective date they came from. We re-check figures against their sources on a rolling basis and prioritize the pages most sensitive to change — state minimum requirements, which move when a legislature acts, and carrier rate factors, which move when a new filing takes effect. When a source publishes a newer edition, we re-transcribe from the new document rather than editing the old numbers in place.

Corrections and reporting an error

We would rather be told we are wrong than stay wrong. If you believe a figure, a coverage explanation, or a state requirement on any page is inaccurate or out of date, tell us and point us to the page. We verify the claim against the primary source, and if it is wrong we correct it promptly and update the page's reviewed date. Substantive corrections to a factual claim are made transparently rather than quietly. Because our figures are tied to specific filings, a correction usually means re-reading the source document, not just changing a number.

Not insurance advice

Our pages are general information, not insurance, legal, or financial advice. Coverage, rates, and requirements vary by insurer and by state and change over time; verify specifics with a licensed agent or your state insurance department before making a decision. Nothing on FastAutoQuote is a guarantee of coverage, price, or eligibility with any insurer.