Who writes this, and what we are not

What this site is

Benefit Year exists because dental coverage is explained almost everywhere by somebody with a plan to sell. The alternative we wanted was duller and more useful: take the actual documents — a plan brochure, an evidence of coverage, a state statute, a government coverage page — and set out what they say about maximums, waiting periods, coverage tiers and the difference between insurance and a discount plan.

Everything fragile on this site is listed in the site's own FACTS.md, with a source URL and the day it was read. Where a document was unreadable, we say so and print nothing. On 24 September 2026, two discount-plan sellers returned an HTTP 403 to us and a third rendered its terms only in a browser, so no price, saving or plan claim for any of them appears anywhere here.

Who writes it

The Benefit Year editorial team — writers and researchers, working from published documents. Nobody here is a dentist, a dental hygienist, a dental nurse or a licensed insurance producer, and this site has no dental reviewer.

We say that in a box at the top of every page rather than in small print, because the alternative is to borrow authority we do not have. You will not find a doctor's name, a clinician's headshot or a reviewed-by-a-clinician stamp on this site, and you should be sceptical of health pages that carry those without a verifiable person behind them.

The three things this site will not do

We will not tell you which insurance to buy. Nobody here is licensed to sell, solicit or negotiate insurance, and no insurer can pay us. Insurers are named here only to quote their own published documents, and none of them is linked.

We will not print a number we have not read at source. No averages we could not verify, no savings percentages taken from marketing pages, no invented example figures. Where two sources disagree — the National Association of Dental Plans publishes two different shares of PPO enrollees with a maximum of $1,500 or more, on two of its own pages — we print both and say which is dated.

We will not give clinical advice. What treatment your mouth needs is a question for a licensed dentist who has examined it. Everything here is about who pays, which is a different question and the only one we are equipped for.

How to check us

Every figure on the site names its document. If you think one is wrong, or out of date, or quoted out of context, write to the editors with the line and we will re-read the source. Corrections get made in the copy and noted, not quietly patched.

The site's commercial arrangements, including what we turn down, are set out on how we are paid, and what we refuse.