Who we are and how we work

Pending legal review. The editorial commitments on this page are complete and workable. The bracketed fields are your entity name, addresses and contact routes, which need filling in before this reads as a real ownership disclosure.

What this site is

Plainclaim is an independent consumer information resource about motor vehicle accidents in the United States. We publish guides on what to do after a crash, how injuries present and get documented, how insurance claims are investigated and valued, how fault is determined, and how the rules change from state to state. We also publish original analysis of public crash data and interviews with people who handle these matters for a living.

We are not a law firm. We are not an insurance company. We are not a government agency. Reading this site, using our tools, or sending us a question does not create an attorney-client or clinician-patient relationship, and nothing here is legal or medical advice.

Who publishes it

This site is published by [LEGAL ENTITY NAME], [ENTITY TYPE], registered in [STATE OF FORMATION]. Editorial contact: [EDITORIAL EMAIL]. Postal address: [POSTAL ADDRESS].

The site carries advertising and participates in lead-generation arrangements with attorneys and claim services. Our disclosures page sets out exactly how that works, what happens to an enquiry, and what a commercial relationship does and does not mean.

Our editorial standards

Every informational page on this site is built to the same standard:

• A direct answer first. Each page opens with a short, plain answer to the question you actually searched, placed above the explanation and before any form or call to action.
• A named writer. Nothing is published anonymously.
• Expert review where the topic requires it. Legal and clinical material is reviewed by a qualified reviewer, and the review is dated.
• Primary-source citations. Where we state a rule, a figure, or a requirement, we cite the statute, agency publication, or dataset it came from rather than another article.
• Visible dates. Every page carries a last-reviewed date, a next-review date, and a jurisdiction label.
• An original contribution. A page exists because it adds something: data, structure, expert commentary, or a clearer explanation. Rewriting what is already published is not a reason to publish.

How we handle the difference between fact and judgement

Some things are verifiable: what a statute says, what a dataset records, what a policy document defines. We cite those.

Other things are patterns rather than facts: how long a claim usually takes, what typically weakens a case, how adjusters generally behave. We describe those as patterns and say so, and we do not dress them up with false precision. This is why we publish timeline ranges and refuse to publish an instant case value calculator.

Review and correction

Pages covering law, deadlines, or coverage requirements are reviewed on a fixed cycle whether or not anyone reports a problem, because the underlying rules change even when the page still looks right.

When we get something wrong, we correct the page, date the correction, and say what changed. We do not silently edit substantive content. The full process is set out in our correction policy, and you can report an error at [CORRECTIONS EMAIL].

Editorial independence

Advertisers and referral partners do not choose our topics, see drafts before publication, or approve our conclusions. Our data reports are not sponsored and we do not accept payment to reach a particular finding. Where a commercial partner is mentioned in editorial content, the relationship is disclosed on that page.

Expert contributors are not paid for appearances and cannot buy a slot. Their credentials are verified before publication and any commercial relationship is disclosed on their profile.

What we will not do

• We will not promise or imply an outcome, a settlement figure, or a timeline for your specific claim.
• We will not manufacture urgency to get you to submit a form.
• We will not present ourselves as a law firm, an insurer, or a government body, or design pages that could be mistaken for one.
• We will not conceal what happens to information you send us.
• We will not publish content that we would not be willing to put a named reviewer behind.

Limits of our coverage

We cover United States motor vehicle accident law and are written for readers in the United States. State guides are published progressively, so not every state is live yet. Participating firms are licensed in particular states and coverage is not uniform, so we may not be able to connect you with a firm everywhere or for every kind of matter.

Contact us

Editorial questions and corrections: [EDITORIAL EMAIL]. Privacy and data requests: [PRIVACY CONTACT EMAIL]. Media and data requests: [MEDIA EMAIL]. Everything else: [GENERAL EMAIL].