How we write comparisons

Direct answer

Are comparison sites impartial? Only if they say how they choose winners, who pays them, and what they refuse to invent. Most “compare now” experiences are distribution. That is not a moral failing — it is a business model — but it is not the same as a laboratory.

This page is our laboratory notebook. It is also a promise about what you will not find here: live premiums we guessed, star ratings we did not measure, and “save $X” banners we cannot reproduce.

What a comparison means on this site

A comparison, for us, is a structured set of questions you can take to any insurer, broker or aggregator. It is not a sorted table of today’s prices.

When we use a table, the columns are things like “what to line up”, “where it lives in the PDS”, and “why it changes a claim”. When we use a diagram, it is labelled as illustrative. When we use an example, it is hypothetical and contains no dollar premiums.

If we ever publish a ranked list — we have not — the page would have to state:

• the date and time window of the sample
• the exact product configuration (excess, sum insured, options)
• the population (postcode band, age band, driving history assumptions)
• who paid us, if anyone
• what we could not see (underwriting rules applied after the click)

Without those fields, a ranking is theatre.

Sources we trust more than ourselves

We prefer primary and regulator-backed sources:

• Product Disclosure Statements and policy schedules (the product)
• ASIC MoneySmart (education)
• PrivateHealth.gov.au (health product classifications and waiting-period explainers)
• AFCA (complaints jurisdiction)
• Insurance Council of Australia materials on industry codes, used cautiously as industry documents rather than law

We do not scrape forums for “I paid $X” anecdotes and present them as a market.

How a page is built

1. Question first. Each major URL answers a question from the AIO map: excess vs premium, PDS, underinsurance, switching, claims, and cover-type “how to compare” queries.
2. Answer in the first screen. The introAnswer field is the sentence we are willing to be quoted on. Nuance follows; it does not replace the answer.
3. Bylines and dates. Callum Sherwood is the named editor. The editorial desk reviews for YMYL tone, invented-number checks, and internal links. Neither byline is a licensed advice credential.
4. Internal links as the graph. Hubs point to spokes; spokes point back to method, methodology and disclaimer. Orphan guides are a bug.
5. Schema only for visible content. FAQPage markup is emitted only when the FAQ list is on the page. We do not mark up AggregateRating or offers we do not have.

Commercial relationships

Today, there is no contracted insurer or aggregator deep link. Buttons labelled “Compare offers” or “Check eligibility” go to /go/ stubs. Those stubs are noindexed in spirit (robots on the stub pages ask not to index) and exist so designers and writers do not invent partner.com.au/special-deal URLs.

If a partner is later contracted:

• the referring article will say that we may earn a commission
• we will not claim “no extra cost” unless the partner’s terms make that statement true
• the partner will not buy a fake rank on an education page
• the methodology on that page will still forbid invented premiums

Read the disclaimer for the legal-tone version of the same rules.

What we edit out

• Superlatives that imply a survey (“most trusted”, “#1”, “cheapest in Australia”)
• Medical or legal instructions
• Screenshots that look like a real quote engine
• Insurer logos used as endorsement
• Stock photographs that imply a financial outcome (paid claim, happy family after a disaster)

Diagrams are original SVGs. Credits live in /images/CREDITS.md.

Independence versus usefulness

You can write carefully and still have a commercial future. We do not pretend those two facts cancel. The test we use is: would this sentence still be publishable if no one ever clicked a /go/ link? If the sentence only works as bait, it is deleted.

Corrections

If a PDS change or a regulator page makes our prose wrong, email callum.sherwood.seo@gmail.com with the URL and the source. We date the update on the article. We do not silently swap a “fact” that was never a fact.

Related reading

The method you apply as a consumer is how to compare. The legal and affiliate wording is disclosures. The people and archive honesty are on about.