About Awake Foundation
Public Education for Insurance Transparency, Crash Accountability, and Civil Reform
Awake Foundation is a public-interest education and reform platform focused on one practical question:
Most crash victims are asked to make life-changing decisions before they understand the available insurance coverage, the medical-billing consequences, the hidden limits of liability policies, or the way uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage actually works.
Many people do not learn whether there is additional coverage — commercial coverage, umbrella coverage, employer-related coverage, rideshare coverage, or household coverage — unless they are forced into litigation.
Awake Foundation exists to illuminate that system.
We study, explain, and advocate for reforms that help citizens, lawyers, lawmakers, journalists, and public agencies understand the real structure of auto insurance claims. Our work begins in Colorado, where C.R.S. § 10-3-1117 created an important model for pre-suit insurance disclosure, and expands across the western United States through state-by-state citizen guides and crash-coverage calculators.
Insurance transparency
Why Insurance Disclosure Matters
After a serious crash, coverage information is not a technical detail. It determines whether an injured person can evaluate medical care, settlement, litigation, Medicaid or Medicare exposure, hospital liens, MedPay, UM/UIM coverage, and long-term financial risk.
When insurers do not provide clear, complete, timely disclosure of all potentially applicable coverage, injured people may be forced to litigate just to discover the basic financial facts of the claim. That defeats the public purpose of insurance transparency. It also shifts cost and uncertainty onto victims, families, courts, healthcare providers, and taxpayers.
Awake Foundation focuses on this gap between what insurance is sold to the public as protection and how the claims process often functions after a serious injury.
Mission
Our Mission
Awake Foundation’s mission is to build public knowledge and support reforms that make auto insurance claims more transparent, understandable, and accountable.
We work to:
- Explain auto insurance coverage in plain language.
- Help citizens understand liability limits, MedPay, PIP, UM/UIM, umbrella coverage, commercial coverage, rideshare coverage, and employer-related coverage.
- Compare disclosure laws across western states.
- Promote model reforms requiring meaningful pre-suit insurance disclosure.
- Expose claim-handling patterns that delay, deny, or obscure coverage information.
- Educate crash victims about medical-billing traps, hospital lien practices, trauma-center charges, and settlement consequences.
- Support public discussion among attorneys, lawmakers, consumer advocates, and affected citizens.
Colorado model
Colorado as a Model
Colorado has taken an important step by requiring insurers to disclose policy information to claimants under C.R.S. § 10-3-1117. The statute reflects a simple public-policy principle: injured people should be able to understand the available liability coverage before they are forced into unnecessary litigation.
That principle deserves national attention.
Colorado’s experience also shows why the law must be enforced and understood. A disclosure statute does not achieve its purpose if insurers can provide incomplete responses, omit excess or umbrella coverage, ignore formal requests, or create ambiguity about whether they have actually complied.
Awake Foundation uses Colorado as a starting point for broader reform. We ask how disclosure rules can be clarified, strengthened, and replicated in other states so citizens are not forced to sue merely to learn what coverage exists.
Western states project
Our Western States Project
Awake Foundation is building state-by-state citizen guides for the western United States. Each guide is designed to help the public understand the basic financial architecture of an auto collision claim in that state.
The guides examine:
- Minimum liability limits.
- Comparative-fault rules.
- UM/UIM coverage.
- MedPay or PIP rules.
- Property-damage limits.
- Wrongful-death and multi-claimant problems.
- Commercial and work-related driving issues.
- Rideshare and delivery-app coverage.
- Umbrella and excess insurance.
- Whether the state requires pre-suit disclosure of coverage.
- How the state could improve insurance transparency.
The goal is not to replace legal advice. The goal is to give citizens a framework for asking better questions and recognizing when the system is withholding information they need.
Related project
Relationship to VictimsGuide.com
Awake Foundation works alongside VictimsGuide.com, a public-facing guide for auto collision victims, beginning with Colorado.
VictimsGuide.com is designed for injured people and families who need practical information after a crash. Awake Foundation is the broader reform and research platform: state comparisons, legislative models, public education, policy analysis, and outreach to lawyers, advocates, and lawmakers.
Together, these projects aim to make the hidden structure of auto insurance visible.
Important notice
Public Education, Not Legal Representation
Awake Foundation does not provide legal representation and does not give individualized legal advice. Our materials are educational and public-interest resources.
People facing serious injury claims, insurance disputes, medical liens, Medicare or Medicaid issues, or litigation deadlines should consult a qualified attorney in their state.
Our purpose is to help citizens understand the questions that matter, the documents they should look for, and the reforms needed to make the system fairer.
Current work
What We Are Building
- Western-state crash insurance calculators.
- Citizen guides to auto policy disclosure laws.
- Educational materials on UM/UIM coverage and liability limits.
- Public resources on MedPay, PIP, trauma-center billing, and hospital liens.
- Spanish-language public education materials.
- Video explainers for citizens and community organizations.
- Reform proposals for lawmakers and public-interest coalitions.
- Research on carrier nondisclosure and delayed coverage disclosure.
Collaboration
Invitation to Collaborate
We welcome input from attorneys, consumer advocates, lawmakers, journalists, healthcare professionals, translators, educators, and citizens who have experienced the consequences of insurance nondisclosure or confusing claim practices.
We are especially interested in recurring patterns involving:
- Failure to disclose umbrella or excess coverage.
- Delayed disclosure of applicable policies.
- Ambiguous or incomplete policy-limit disclosures.
- Claims where litigation was necessary to discover coverage.
- Work-related driving exclusions or commercial-use disputes.
- UM/UIM claims delayed because liability coverage was not disclosed.
- Medical-billing practices that consume or intercept insurance proceeds.
Awake Foundation is built on the belief that public knowledge is a form of accountability. Once citizens can see the structure of the system, they can begin to demand a better one.
Contact
Contact Awake Foundation
To share a disclosure problem, reform idea, public-interest inquiry, or collaboration proposal, please contact Awake Foundation through the contact page.
Awake Foundation
Public education for insurance transparency, crash accountability, and civil reform.