Editorial & Corrections Policy

PlainInsurer turns published insurance-regulator data — the NAIC's consumer complaint indexes and the CMS Transparency in Coverage claim-denial filings — into readable, comparable pages. This page explains how those pages are produced, the standards we hold them to, and exactly how to flag a figure that looks wrong.

How pages are produced

PlainInsurer's insurer, state, ranking, and line-of-business pages are generated from a structured database and rendered from that database — the grades, complaint indexes, denial rates, and per-state figures you see are read directly from the data, not hand-typed page by page. The same template renders every insurer and state so that coverage is consistent across the dataset. We are transparent that these data pages are produced programmatically from the source records rather than written individually; the editorial work goes into the pipeline, the methodology, and the written guides.

Sourcing standards & how the data is built

  • Claim-denial rates — measured. Per-state, per-issuer claim-denial rates come directly from the CMS Transparency in Coverage Public Use File (PY2025). These are computed from each issuer's reported claims received and claims denied — not estimated.
  • Auto premiums — measured. State-level auto-insurance premiums and expenditures come from the NAIC 2023 Auto Insurance Database Report.
  • Complaint index — a curated public-records dataset. The NAIC does not publish bulk company-level complaint data via a public download. Our complaint index for the top ~200 U.S. insurers is compiled from the NAIC's published consumer complaint-index figures and state Department-of-Insurance reports. We label it as such and do not represent it as a bulk official NAIC feed.
  • Grades are derived and labeled. The A–F reputation grade is our peer-relative composite of the complaint index, denial rate, and prior-authorization data — presented as PlainInsurer's analysis, distinct from any regulator's rating.
  • No invented data. Where a value is unavailable for an insurer or state, the page says so rather than filling the gap with an estimate. We do not publish per-state complaint counts, because reliable per-state complaint breakdowns are not available in the public data.

Update cadence

We refresh each dataset on the cadence its source agency publishes: the CMS Transparency in Coverage file updates roughly annually, the NAIC Auto Insurance Database is released each summer for the prior year, and complaint-index figures are updated as the NAIC and state regulators publish them. Each page reflects the most recent data we have ingested; the vintage is noted in the source line on every data page. Published agency data is typically six to eighteen months old by the time it is released — that lag is inherent to the source, not to us.

Corrections process

If a figure on PlainInsurer looks wrong, please tell us. Because our pages are generated from published datasets, a genuine error almost always traces back to either the source data or our processing of it — so this is how we handle a report:

  1. Report. Use the contact page with the page URL and the value that looks off.
  2. Verify. We compare the figure against the issuing source — the CMS file, the NAIC report, or the published complaint index.
  3. Fix at the source. If the value is wrong on our side, we correct it in the database and pipeline that generate the page — not just on the single page — so every affected page is fixed at once. If the figure faithfully reflects the source data, we explain that and link to the primary source.
  4. Note it. Material corrections are reflected the next time pages rebuild.

We aim to acknowledge data-error reports within a few business days.

Editorial independence

PlainInsurer is an independent publisher and is not affiliated with the NAIC, CMS, or any government agency or insurer. We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from any insurance company or other covered entity. Advertisers do not influence which insurers we cover, the grades we compute, or how we present them. Complaint and denial figures are taken directly from the source data and are never edited to favour any company.

Appropriate use

PlainInsurer is for informational purposes only and does not constitute insurance, financial, or legal advice. A high complaint ratio or denial rate is a signal worth investigating, not proof of wrongdoing, and an insurer's record can change after we ingest the data. For any coverage decision, verify current details with the insurer, a licensed agent, or your state Department of Insurance. See our full appropriate-use disclaimer.