Editorial standards

This covers our guides, comparisons and rankings — the things we write, as opposed to the company information we collect and the reviews the public writes.

What our guides are for

A guide explains how a financial product works so that you can ask a provider better questions. It is not advice, and it will never tell you which company to choose.

Our guides do not recommend listed companies. That is a hard rule, not a stylistic preference: this site sells placement, and a guide that steered readers towards particular listings would make every other page on the site harder to trust.

How rankings are built

Rankings are mechanical. They are computed from published customer ratings using a method stated on the ranking page itself, and they are published only where enough companies have enough reviews for the result to mean anything. A ranking drawn from three reviews is worse than no ranking, so below that threshold we publish nothing rather than publishing something thin.

Payment does not affect a ranking. Neither does claiming a listing, replying to reviews, or anything else a company can do other than be rated well by its customers.

Authorship and review dates

Every guide shows who wrote it and when it was last reviewed, not just when it was first published. Financial products change; a piece that was accurate three years ago and has not been looked at since is not a piece you should rely on, and the date is there so you can judge that for yourself.

Where a guide has gone too long without a review, it is flagged internally for re-checking rather than quietly left in place.

Corrections

If we get something wrong we correct it and update the review date. We do not silently edit a substantive error out of a published piece and leave the original date standing.

Commercial relationships

The only paid product on this site is placement, and it is labelled “Paid placement” wherever it appears. We do not take payment for editorial coverage, for inclusion in a guide, or for a position in a ranking. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed on the page in question and not only here.

What we are not

We are not a regulator, an ombudsman, a broker or an adviser. We do not arrange financial products and we do not receive commission on them.