Methodology, and why we do not publish premium tables

This page explains how we work. It also explains our most visible editorial decision: the absence of premium tables on a site about insurance costs.

Why we do not publish premium tables

A premium table claims to tell a reader that a person of a certain age, buying a certain amount of coverage for a certain term, will pay a certain monthly price. For that claim to be honest, it would need to rest on transparent, current, population-level pricing data.

The public sources people usually cite do not contain that data. CDC and Social Security Administration life tables measure mortality experience. NAIC consumer guides explain product types and shopping rights. None of them publish the proprietary rate manuals insurers actually use, which vary by company, state, health class, tobacco status, build charts, family history rules, and underwriting judgment.

A site that prints a tidy premium table anyway is either using old, cherry-picked marketing numbers, hiding a very narrow set of assumptions, or inventing the figures. In a market with this much YMYL sensitivity, meaning your money and your family's protection, we consider that a breach of trust. So we do the defensible thing instead: explain the structure, teach the arithmetic, and give you a worksheet for the real quotes you receive.

What we use instead

• Context facts with receipts. When we cite a funeral cost median or life expectancy context, we name the source and year, for example the NFDA 2023 Member General Price List Study or the Social Security Administration's period life tables, and we keep a checked-in record of the fact, source, and verification date.
• Mechanics over numbers. Health classes, smoker classes, grading schedules, and conversion deadlines decide claims and costs. Those can be explained accurately without inventing a price.
• Your numbers, your arithmetic. The quote worksheet only computes what you enter. It stores nothing and sends nothing.
• Clearly labelled hypotheticals. Worked examples use round, obviously illustrative numbers and say so on the page. They teach the math; they are never presented as prices.

What we will not do

• Publish premium tables or premium range estimates as if they were facts.
• Predict that any reader will qualify for a health class or policy.
• Use fear-based selling, countdown pressure, or "pennies a day" framing.
• Recommend a specific insurer or policy.

Standing advice

Life insurance is regulated state by state, and personal decisions deserve personal advice. Use this site to understand the machine, then talk with a licensed life insurance agent in your state before buying, replacing, or dropping coverage.