Sources & Methodology
How every requirement on this site is checked, and how we show our work.
409
guides published
140
with hand-checked primary sources
291
corrections logged in public
47
state auto minimums verified at statute
The Rule: The Statute or the Regulator, Never a Summary
Every coverage amount, penalty and threshold on Coverage Criteria has to trace to a primary source: the statute or administrative code, the regulator's own page, or, for platform coverage, the platform's own insurance page. Insurer summaries, comparison tables and other guides are not sources, however many of them agree. On this site, consensus has been wrong more than once: a figure copied across many pages is still one unchecked figure.
Primary Source Types
| Content type | Accepted primary sources |
|---|---|
| State auto and motorcycle insurance | State statute or administrative code · State DMV · State Department of Insurance |
| Boats and personal watercraft | State statute · State boating agency and its official boating handbook |
| Gig-economy platform coverage | The platform's own insurance pages · State DOI guidance on TNC and delivery coverage |
| Contractor and trade insurance | State licensing board rules · Contractor bond statutes |
| Business and professional liability | State statute · Licensing board rules · State DOI |
| Compliance (SR-22, FR-44, DOT/FMCSA) | The Code of Federal Regulations · State code · State DMV filing pages |
| Travel insurance | Destination government immigration or consulate pages · EU visa rules |
How a Guide Is Checked
- Read the law itself. The coverage amount, the penalty, who it applies to and the exemptions are read off the statute or regulation, with the operative text recorded.
- Check every claim, not just the headline. A guide is checked line by line. A claim that cannot be traced to a source is removed rather than reworded.
- Say so when a source is weaker. Where an official host cannot be reached and a figure rests on a secondary copy of the law, the guide says what it rests on, or leaves the figure out.
- Fix the whole library, not one page. When a figure turns out to be wrong, every guide that repeats it is found and corrected in the same change.
- Log it. Every material correction goes into the public corrections register, with the error, the fix and the source.
140 guides carry a list of hand-checked primary sources, shown under each guide's quick answer and at its foot; every guide also links the regulators for its topic. 145 guides open with a structured quick answer built from the checked facts.
Automated Consistency Checks
People make mistakes, so every change to the library runs through an automated checker before it can be published. It tests for the ways this library has actually gone wrong in the past:
| 1 | Two guides disagree | Two articles quoting different minimums for the same state means one of them is wrong. |
| 2 | Motorcycle vs auto | A state’s motorcycle and auto guides must agree wherever the law ties them together. |
| 3 | Stale forward-looking claims | “Changing to X next year” becomes false once that year arrives. |
| 4 | Expired dated claims | Anything that “expires” on a date that has passed. |
| 5 | Drift from a verified figure | Every state auto minimum is compared with a registry of figures read off the statute itself, so a number the whole library shares still fails if it is wrong. |
| 6 | Figures hardcoded in site code | Limits and dates belong in the articles, where these checks can see them. |
| 7 | FR-44 tiers | Penalty tiers are held to the statutory multiple of the state minimum. |
| 8 | Superseded figures | Amounts a statute has retired, such as an old contractor bond, fail if any page states them as current. |
| 9 | Denied laws | A page that says a state has no law it does have, such as a boat insurance requirement, fails. |
The checker is itself tested: real past errors are re-injected into the library, and each check must catch the one it was built for. The state minimums it enforces are published as an open dataset: state auto liability minimums, with the statute for every state.
Recent Corrections
The newest entries in the register, unedited:
#291 · October 21, 2026 · Kenya Travel Insurance Requirements: The Mandatory eTA Health Cover
Correction: The High Court held on 5 October 2026 ([2026] KEHC 15080 (KLR)) that foreign travel insurance uploaded and verified through the eTA is valid, upholding a Ministry memorandum to that effect; the page now sets this against the UK advice. Added the whole-stay and point-of-entry rules in regulation 70, and cites the Gazette from Kenya Law.
#290 · October 21, 2026 · Sole Trader Insurance Requirements: UK, Australia & US Guide
Correction: The test is the working relationship and control, not tax status; HSE says it does not matter what a worker's tax status is. The £5,000,000 minimum applies to any one occurrence and includes costs and expenses. The close-family exemption is now stated.
#289 · October 21, 2026 · Teen Driver Insurance Requirements | GDL & SR-22 Guide
Correction: Permit-holder cover is set by the household policy's terms, not by state law. South Carolina does require proof of liability insurance, or a no-vehicle affidavit, when a permit is issued.
How Guides Stay Current
Laws change. Each verified state minimum carries the date it was last read off the statute, and the checker warns when one is more than a year old. Regulation news is scanned for changes to the rules we cover, and a guide affected by a change is re-checked against the new law, with any correction logged.
Limitations
We cover US requirements first (all 50 states and DC), with secondary coverage of travel-insurance rules for other countries. City and county rules are covered only where they affect most operators in a market. A guide summarises the law; it is not legal advice, and the statute and the regulator always take precedence.
Report an Error
If you believe a guide is wrong, email hello@coveragecriteria.com with the page, the claim and the official source. Confirmed errors are corrected and logged in the corrections register.