LA Times Compare Editorial Policy

The mission of LA Times Compare

At LA Times Compare, we’re here to help our readers make smart financial decisions.

We achieve this by delivering impartial reviews and comparisons across various financial categories, such as credit cards, banking, and insurance. We aim to simplify our readers’ shopping experience and foster confidence in their purchase decisions by doing the hard work for them to compare products and prices from a wide range of providers and offer a short list of what we consider to be the top options in each category.

Our editorial standards & commitment to impartiality

At LA Times Compare, we uphold the highest editorial standards to guarantee truthful and unbiased content.

Our skilled freelance writers have a long and proven track record of providing fact-based and honest reviews to help you make sound financial decisions. Our team of freelance editors and writers conduct thorough research and draw from their expert knowledge to provide you with fair and unbiased reviews, empowering you to make well-informed financial decisions. It’s important to note that all terminology referring to “best” is subjective, but represents our team’s top picks based on what we consider aligns with the needs and interests of our reader demographics.

Our readers and their interests remain paramount. We’re committed to only featuring content and products that align with the Los Angeles Times audience and existing readership. Additionally, we never allow adult/explicit brands or content to be featured on our website.

Our business relies on our readers trusting us to provide high-quality content and reliable product recommendations. Therefore, the content we provide is independent, accurate, fact-based and uninfluenced by agreements with our advertising partners.

Some offers on our platform come from companies that pay us to feature, review, or write about their products. If present, these types of products are accompanied by a clearly marked advertiser disclosure denoting a monetized or sponsored product. This can impact the placement and order of products on our site but never affects our ability to be impartial or offer fact-based reviews and content. Furthermore, the freelance writers and reviewers hired to create content for LA Times Compare do not receive direct compensation from our partners or advertisers.

How we operate financially

At LA Times Compare, we aim to be fully transparent about how we are able to publish quality content for our readers and offer low-price deals and offers for a range of financial products and services.

Our goal is to provide our readers with a large and varied selection of the most relevant offers to them. That said, our website does not feature all providers or products available on the market.

LA Times Compare is run as an independent, advertising-supported service offering comparisons and product reviews. Sponsored content is clearly marked on our website with an advertiser disclosure.

You may find our content contains links to our brand partner’s websites where you can explore more information about products and services as well as purchase or sign up for specific offers listed on LA Times Compare or our partner’s websites.

We may earn a small commission from our brand partners when users click on or purchase something using links to sponsored products and services posted on our site. Using these links is free of charge for the user and has no impact on the final cost the user pays for goods or services listed on our website.

The appearance of these sponsored products never impacts our ability to offer unbiased, fact-based reviews about the products shown on our website. It may, however, play a role in the order of product listings or where on the page you find the product. Other factors, such as your location, search criteria, or the general guidelines outlined in the Los Angeles Times Terms of Service can alter where and how certain products are displayed on our site.

Our partners

We are extremely selective with our partners and the products shown on our website. We partner with reputable, market-leading companies in each sector. This allows us to provide our readers with products and services from wide variety of providers and allows us to maintain accurate and up-to-date product information while ensuring our users have a safe and secure customer journey.

Security

Before partnering with new service providers, we follow a rigorous security protocol on the provider’s tools and external software dependencies to guarantee the safety and quality of our users’ customer journey. By vetting our partners, we ensure that users are only sent to trusted and reputable websites with good security practices. This helps us protect our users sensitive personal information from potential tampering and leaks caused by malicious third parties. For more information, please also see the LA Times Privacy Policy.

Compliance

Additionally, our team adheres to compliance criteria set out by our partners to ensure we meet industry requirements and the product information remains up to date. This includes modifications and revisions to coverage, offers, and other details. Apart from the guidelines established by our partners, our team constantly reviews and modifies products and providers listed on our site to ensure they remain relevant to the Los Angeles Times readers.

Product selection

Our partners are not directly involved in selecting the products we cover. Our LA Times Compare freelance writers and editors make these decisions under the supervision and approval of the Los Angeles Times Commercial Team. In this way, we remain independent and unbiased in our coverage and product selections and prioritize the most helpful content for our readers.

As part of our commitment to offering the most useful products to our users, our partnerships are continue to evolve and change.