Methodology

How we research

Every Medigap claim on this site traces to a primary source: medicare.gov, cms.gov, 42 U.S.C. § 1395ss (uscode.house.gov), 42 CFR § 422.2260+ (ecfr.gov), state insurance department public materials, or the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. We never cite Medicare-broker funnel sites (eHealth, MedicareFAQ, Boomer Benefits, NCOA, Healthline, Forbes, AARP-paid content) as primary; those are supplementary at most.

The federal Medigap plan-letter benefits matrix is CMS-frozen by the 1990 NAIC Medicare Supplement Standardization Act. We quote the matrix cells verbatim from medicare.gov — we never paraphrase a federally-frozen benefits cell. Editorial prose surrounding the matrix (plan descriptions, taglines, comparison framing) is original explanatory writing that summarizes the underlying cells in plain English; the matrix itself remains verbatim. Where a cell value has not been re-verified at primary source by a build, the value sits in our data manifest with an explicit [PLACEHOLDER: verify CMS cell 2026-MM-DD] marker until editorial reviewer signs off.

How we cite

Every page that makes a policy claim displays a PolicyStatePin: a small inline pill (or full block on policy hubs) that shows the primary-source URL, a short label, and the YYYY-MM-DD last-verified date. We never use squishy phrases like “Updated recently” — explicit YYYY-MM-DD only.

For federal-floor states (states without rules beyond the federal 6-month OEP), the state page cites the federal medicare.gov rule directly — the federal claim is the rule in those states. For state-specific rules (CA, CT, ME, MA, MN, NY, OR, WI), the state page cites the state DOI or medicare.gov state-Medigap page. The state insurance department is surfaced separately on every state page as the venue for Medigap complaints and premium disputes. We never fake a citation.

Annual review cycle

CMS publishes new plan-year rating materials each October–November for the following calendar year. At that time, we trigger an annual review pass:

• Refresh the K/L out-of-pocket limit dollar amounts
• Refresh the Plan F / Plan G high-deductible plan amounts
• Refresh the Part B deductible amount referenced in Plan F/C/G grandfathering language
• Refresh the LAST_UPDATED date pinned on every page
• Editorial reviewer re-signs off on the federal benefits matrix verbatim quote

Per-state Medigap rule changes trigger a per-state cron review (manual today; automated state-DOI watch is on the backlog). When a state changes its rule mid-cycle, we update the state page and bump the per-state last-verified date. Until we update, the prior-year date remains pinned — so readers always see exactly when the cited claim was last verified.

Editorial reviewer

Every page is reviewed by either a licensed Medicare insurance broker (NPN-verifiable via the National Insurance Producer Registry; clean state-insurance-commissioner disciplinary record verified annually) or a state SHIP / SHIBA volunteer (state-coordinator written confirmation on file). When reviewer onboarding is in progress at a build, the reviewer-credit block surfaces the pending status explicitly. We never display a reviewer name without a real, verifiable credential on file. Fabricating a reviewer would be disqualifying both for E-E-A-T trust signals and for CMS-MCMG-compliance discipline; we don’t do it.

Monetization disclosure

v1 of MedigapWindow.com runs without compensated routing to Medicare brokers.The site may run privacy-respecting display advertising (subject to CMS Sensitive Audience constraints under Google’s Personalised Advertising Policy — we do not run remarketing pixels and we do not enable Personalised Advertising on this property). In a future v1.1 release, after our editorial reviewer signs off on the disclosure copy against 42 CFR § 422.2260+ TPMO requirements, we may offer an optional, fully-disclosed compensated referral path to licensed Medicare brokers. Until then, no compensated routing happens anywhere on this site — the broker-referral surface ships in a placeholder mode.

Privacy

The OEP-decoder calculation runs entirely in your browser. Your DOB, Part B effective date, state, and Medicaid status are never transmitted off your device and never logged. We track aggregate decoder-output counts for product analytics only (e.g., what percent of sessions land in “OEP open” vs “OEP closed” vs “dual eligible”), with no identifying detail. See full privacy policy →