How We Research

Every meaningful fact, number, or legal rule on this site comes from a named source. This page explains the standards we apply to every guide before we publish it.

Why this matters for you

The people who read these guides are usually making a decision they’ve never made before — writing a will, settling an estate, arranging a funeral, sizing a life insurance policy — and often doing it while grieving or under pressure. In this market, the numbers are genuinely hard to find, and a lot of the content out there is written to sell you something rather than to inform you.

Our entire job is to be the neutral reference instead: a publisher, not a seller, that gives you real numbers with the source and the date attached, and stops there. That is only meaningful if the facts behind it are solid — which is why we hold every page to the standards below before it goes live.

Source hierarchy

For each topic, we work down a hierarchy from the most authoritative sources to the most accessible:

1. Primary sources (where we start)

• State statutes. For probate fees, small-estate thresholds, intestacy rules, will validity requirements, and creditor claim periods — we cite the statute number directly (e.g., Cal. Prob. Code §10810, N.C.G.S. §28A-23-3). These are the controlling law.
• State court systems. Filing fee schedules, forms, and procedural guidance come from state court websites where available.
• Federal agencies. Tax rules come from IRS publications and guidance (Publication 525, Publication 559, IRS topic pages). Funeral rights come from the FTC Funeral Rule. Social Security guidance comes from SSA.gov.
• Federal estate-tax exemption figures come from IRS annual revenue procedures.

2. Authoritative secondary sources

• National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) for funeral cost statistics — the industry’s standard reference.
• LIMRA for life insurance ownership and gap statistics — the industry’s main research body.
• National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) for insurance regulatory data.
• Insurance Information Institute (III) for neutral insurance industry stats.
• American Bar Association and state bar associations for procedural and ethical guidance.

3. Accessible secondary sources (cross-checks)

Where the primary sources are technical or paywalled, we cross-check against major financial publications and well-regarded legal information sites (NerdWallet, Policygenius, Investopedia, Nolo, FindLaw). We use these to confirm what primary sources say in plain language — we don’t rely on them as the sole source for any meaningful fact.

How we cite

• Every state-specific fact cites the state statute by name and section.
• Every dollar figure has a year and a source.
• Premium ranges are labeled “illustrative, [month/year]”, and we state the rating factors the carrier itself publishes: age, health class, state, term length, and tobacco use. We do not attach a call to action to a price.
• Where a fact may have changed since publication, we add a “re-verify before relying” note.
• Where we looked and found nothing, we say so in those words: “We found no published source for this figure as of [month year].” The absence is what goes on the page. We do not fill the gap with a plausible-looking number.

What we don’t do

• We do not invent numbers. A figure stays on a page only if a law sets it and we have read that law, or a named publisher is the source and we have read the publication and can date it. Anything else comes off the page. It does not stay as an estimate, and it is not replaced with a wider range — a softer number is still an unsourced one.
• We do not present single figures for things that vary regionally. Funeral costs in California are not the same as funeral costs in Iowa. Probate timelines depend on the local court. We use ranges.
• We do not rely on a single source for anything important. Major facts are cross-checked across at least two sources.
• We do not republish statutes verbatim where they’re protected by copyright (Westlaw, LexisNexis annotations). We link to the official state code or to Justia’s public-domain mirror.

How we verify

Estate planning law changes — sometimes substantially, sometimes quietly. The federal estate-tax exemption is adjusted annually for inflation and is periodically revised by Congress. State small-estate thresholds move with inflation in several states. Probate procedures are amended by state legislatures every session. Carrier premium ranges drift with rate filings.

So verification here is not an annual sweep of a page. It runs claim by claim:

1. Every claim is tracked on its own. A claim is one statement plus the source it rests on — a statute section, an agency page, a named survey. Each is a separate record, with the page it appears on and the state it belongs to.
2. Each claim is checked against its primary source. That means the statute itself, not a summary of it. The result is recorded with the date of the check and one of five verdicts: confirmed, wrong, stale, unsourced, or not yet checked.
3. A wrong verdict is a correction, not a note. The sentence is rewritten against what the source actually says, and the claim is then re-checked against that source.
4. Blocked sources are re-tried, not guessed around. Some state legislature sites cannot be read on a given day — a JavaScript-only viewer, a bot challenge, an expired certificate. Those claims are recorded as unverified with the reason and go back in the queue. They never get a figure invented to cover the gap.
5. A statute’s published text can lag its legislature. Where a section carries a sunset, a “through [date]” window, or a temporary surcharge, we also check the legislature’s own list of bills affecting that section. Where an amendment is enacted but not yet in force, both figures are published with their dates, and the changeover date is recorded so the switch is not missed.
6. The build checks the whole site on every change. Ten automated gates run before anything is published: citation format, cross-page consistency, whether every figure carries a citation, whether every legal statement carries one, whether a claim that appears on several pages is stated identically on all of them, whether advisory wording has crept in, and whether a statutory change has reached its effective date. A page that fails a gate does not go live.

Publication and update dates are shown on every page. If you find a fact that’s gone stale, please tell us via the Contact page. We post corrections publicly with a dated note at the bottom of the affected page.

What “Citations verified” means

Some pages carry a Citations verified line with a date, beneath the byline. It is generated from the verification record rather than written by hand, and the rule behind it is deliberately strict.

What it means: every citation on that page has been opened at its primary source and confirmed to say what the page says it says. The date shown is the most recent of those checks.

What it does not mean:

• It is not a claim that the page is complete, or that it covers everything about its topic.
• It is not a claim that the law has not changed since that date. It is the date we last looked.
• It is not legal advice, and it does not make the page a substitute for a licensed professional in your state.
• It says nothing about a figure that carries no citation at all. A page with an unsourced price does not qualify for the line — which is why some of our cost pages do not carry it.

A page without the line has either not been checked yet, or holds at least one figure that has not been confirmed. That is all its absence means; it is not a judgement about the page.

Editorial independence

The Site displays advertising served through Mediavine. Advertisers do not influence what this site writes, and an ad is not a recommendation. We accept no affiliate commissions, referral fees, or sponsored content. Nothing in our guides is paid placement.

• We do not recommend products at all. Where a page lists providers, they are ordered by a disclosed, objective, cited field — never by our own judgement — and the ordering basis is stated on the page.
• We document the thresholds and conditions under which a product applies, including where it does not apply.
• No company can pay to appear in our guides or influence what they say.

For the legal version of these practices, see our Disclaimer and About pages.

Conflict-of-interest disclosure

The Estate Planning Guide is operated independently. We are not:

• A licensed law firm or affiliated with one
• A licensed insurance agency or affiliated with one
• A licensed financial advisor or affiliated with one

We are an independent publisher of educational content. We don’t sell legal services, insurance policies, financial products, or your data.

What “educational only” means

Every page on this site carries an educational-only disclaimer because that’s exactly what it is:

• It is general information, not advice on your specific situation.
• It does not create an attorney-client, financial advisor, or insurance agent relationship.
• It may not reflect the most recent change in your state’s law.
• It is not a substitute for talking to a licensed professional in your jurisdiction.

If a page on this site helps you understand a topic well enough to ask better questions of a real professional, it’s done its job. That’s what we’re trying to build.

Contact

To suggest a correction, point out a fact that’s gone stale, or ask about a topic we should cover, use the Contact page.