I’m Ryan Hearn. I read the things most people skim.
The part of a document that decides what happens to you is almost never the part it wants you to read. It’s the exclusion. It’s the definition three pages earlier that quietly narrows the promise. It’s the sentence written on the assumption that nobody would get that far. I’ve spent my working life on those parts — law school first, then a decade in insurance.
A few years ago I lost most of my vision, and I read everything through a screen reader now. That turned out to be a better instrument than I expected. It tells you, without any diplomacy, whether a thing was actually built the way it was advertised. Policies and websites fail that test the same way and for the same reason: somebody wrote the claim, and nobody went back to check the document against it.
What I write about
Fine print, mostly, and what it costs people when nobody reads it.
That covers contracts and terms of service, the law I studied and never stopped following, and documents that are unreadable by design or by neglect. It covers what happens when you try to actually use the thing — the software, the kiosk, the verification screen that assumes you can watch yourself succeed. And it covers how to run your own tools rather than renting them, which is most of why this site exists.
If you read one thing here, make it Progress, Not Perfection, a long and practical guide to adjusting to blindness, written for people in the middle of it.
What I’ve built
Insightful Coverage and the Life Coverage Calculator — both free, and neither one earns me anything.
Latest writing
- What an Insurance Policy Actually Is
- Progress, Not Perfection: A Practical Guide to Adjusting to Blindness
- What Is DEI? A Personal and Unfinished Journey Toward Belonging
Get in touch
A question, a correction, or something here that landed — I read everything that comes in, and I answer most of it.
Nothing on this site is legal or financial advice. Nothing here is sponsored and there are no affiliate links.