Editorial Policy

Settlement Insight publishes data-driven research and educational content about US legal settlements. Because our content covers financial and health-related decisions (“Your Money or Your Life” topics under Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines), we hold ourselves to rigorous standards for data accuracy, source transparency, and editorial review.

This page documents exactly how our content is created, reviewed, corrected, and maintained.

All research, data analysis, and editorial content on Settlement Insight is written by Leonard Goldberg, founder and data analyst. Leonard leads the aggregation and analysis of settlement data from federal (NPDB, U.S. Treasury, BLS), state (workers’ compensation boards), and municipal (NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles) public records — currently over 22.3 million records spanning 2000–2025.

Settlement Insight is an independent publisher and does not provide legal advice. We are not a law firm. All calculators and educational content are informational tools intended to help readers understand how settlement values are typically determined. Readers should consult a licensed attorney in their jurisdiction for advice specific to their situation.

We use only verified, public, citable data sources:

• National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) Public Use Data File — Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Every medical malpractice payment report since 1990. See our 530K-record analysis.
• U.S. Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service — Judgment Fund Payment Search. All federal government settlement and judgment payments 2008–2025. See our $60B analysis.
• NAIC Insurance Claims Data — National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Auto, property, and liability claim statistics.
• NY Workers’ Compensation Board — 5.5M+ claim records.
• Municipal settlement databases (NYC Law Department, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia) — published under public records laws.
• State law references — Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII) and primary state statutes. Fault systems, statutes of limitations, and damage caps are cited to specific code sections.

We do not use proprietary insurance data, anonymous user submissions, scraped competitor data, or AI-generated statistics.

Our research pages and blog articles follow a consistent process:

1. Raw data ingestion from primary sources (CSV, XML, JSON, or direct database access where available).
2. Schema validation — every field is typed, nulls are tracked, and obviously corrupt records are flagged.
3. Aggregation via SQL in our legal-database (SQLite). Aggregation queries are reproducible.
4. Statistical checks — we compute percentiles, detect outliers, and verify totals against published source totals where available.
5. Citation — every statistic on the site traces back to a specific source row, filter, and date range.
6. Open datasets — major analyses are published on Zenodo with a DOI and CC BY 4.0 license for independent verification.

Content is reviewed on a structured schedule:

• Research pages: reviewed when underlying data is refreshed (NPDB data publishes quarterly; Treasury data publishes monthly). Last-updated dates are visible on each page.
• State law pages (car accident calculators): reviewed when state statutes change (via LegiScan tracking). Fault system classifications and statute-of-limitations years are verified against current code.
• Calculator methodology: reviewed annually or when industry standards change. The multiplier method reflects current insurance-adjuster practice.
• Blog posts: reviewed annually; content with time-sensitive data (e.g., “2026 settlement amounts”) is updated yearly.

Before publication, every factual claim is checked for:

• Source existence — the cited source must be publicly accessible.
• Numerical accuracy — figures are cross-checked against the raw data.
• Statutory accuracy — legal citations are verified against current state code.
• Temporal accuracy — year references are checked to avoid stale data.
• No confusion between claim types — medical malpractice caps are never conflated with personal injury caps (a common error).

We correct factual errors promptly and transparently. If you find an error:

• Email info@settlementinsight.com with the page URL and the specific claim you believe is wrong.
• We investigate within 48 hours. If the claim is wrong, we update the page and note the correction in the page’s article:modified_time metadata.
• Material corrections (changes to key numbers, legal facts, or conclusions) are noted in a visible correction notice on the affected page for at least 30 days.

We use AI tools (Claude, Gemini) as assistants in content production — for drafting, editing, and data analysis code. All legal facts, statistical claims, and statutory citations are reviewed by a human (Leonard Goldberg) before publication.

AI is not permitted to generate final claims about: fault systems, statutes of limitations, damage caps, case outcomes, or settlement amounts without human verification against primary sources. This policy exists specifically because AI tools have been observed to confuse medical malpractice caps with personal injury caps (a dangerous error for readers).

Settlement Insight is an independent publisher. We do not accept paid placements, sponsored research, or advertorial content in our research or blog sections.

We generate revenue through:

• Referring readers who request attorney contact to vetted legal-referral networks (with clear disclosure).
• Participation in public-interest open-data grants for research publications.

No attorney, law firm, or insurance company can pay to alter our research conclusions, calculator methodology, or state law classifications.

Questions about our editorial process, data sources, or a specific claim?

• Corrections: info@settlementinsight.com
• Press & research inquiries: press@settlementinsight.com
• General: contact form