Pet insurance methodology

How we research pet insurance

We are not an insurance agency and we do not sell insurance. We are a comparison and information site. What we can do is explain the types of pet cover, show what each carrier publishes about its own policies, and point you to the carrier's own quote route for a price that reflects your pet.

How we research

Our research follows the same steps for every pet insurance page on the site.

1. Start with the official source, not a roundup. For rules, that means the state departments of insurance and state statutes. For carrier facts, it means the carrier's own published policy information. Secondary sources (articles, roundups, aggregators) are never the source of a figure. If an official source cannot be found, the figure is not published.
2. Copy the figure exactly as the source prints it. No rounding, no estimating, no "correcting" a source's own rounding.
3. Name the profile, the place, and the date, every time. A pet insurance figure is meaningless without the species, breed, age, location, deductible, annual limit, and reimbursement percentage it describes. If any of those is missing from the source, the figure is not published.
4. Describe cover from the policy, not from a sales page. Accident and illness cover, wellness and preventive cover, waiting periods, pre-existing condition rules, age limits, and breed exclusions are taken from the carrier's published policy information. Where the policy wording is not public, we say the detail is available only in the policy document.
5. Have every page reviewed by an editor before publication. Our editors are Enu Zehra and Ms. Kakka. They check every figure against its named source. A page is not published until the figures check out.
6. Re-verify on a fixed schedule. Pages are reviewed at least every six months. A figure past its review date is flagged, not silently left as if it were current.

The sources we use

State departments of insurance and state statutes. These are the sources for pet insurance rules on our pages. Pet insurance is regulated as property and casualty insurance in most states, and the rules (including waiting-period and disclosure requirements) differ by state. Every state-specific statement on the site carries the source and the date it was checked.

Carrier-published policy information. For each carrier shown on the site, we record what the carrier itself publishes: accident-only versus accident-and-illness cover, wellness options, waiting periods, pre-existing condition rules, age limits, breed restrictions, deductible and reimbursement options, annual limits, and the quote route. We do not record a premium, because no carrier publishes a single premium. A premium is calculated for the individual pet.

NAIC Complaint Index. The NAIC publishes a complaint index for insurers, based on a three-year window of confirmed complaints relative to market share. We use it as the basis for future complaint-based comparisons. We publish no complaint ranking that we have not computed from the NAIC's own published index, and we publish the method beside the ranking.

AM Best financial strength ratings. AM Best publishes financial strength ratings for insurers. Where we show a financial-strength figure, it is AM Best's published rating, named as such, with the date it was checked. We do not convert ratings into our own scores.

Sample-rate shopping: how we plan to get real prices

Because no free source publishes pet insurance premiums, our plan for real prices is to collect them ourselves, by shopping for quotes on carriers' own websites, for fixed sample pets, and publishing the results with the full method. This is a plan, not a finished product: no sample rates have been collected or published yet, and none will be published until the collection is done and the method is printed beside the results.

The method, when we run it, will be:

• Fixed sample pets. The same pet profiles for every carrier (the same species, breed, age, and location) so the quotes are comparable.
• Fixed cover. The same deductible, annual limit, and reimbursement percentage for every quote (a $250 deductible, a $5,000 annual limit, and 80% reimbursement) so the price differences reflect the carrier, not the cover.
• Fixed cities. Quotes collected for the same sample pets in the same set of US cities, so location is held constant.
• Full disclosure. Every published sample rate will carry the date it was collected, the sample pet profile, the cover, the city, and the carrier's quote route. A sample rate is a snapshot of what the carrier's website quoted for that sample pet on that date. It is not your price, and it will be labelled as such.

Until that collection is done, every pet insurance premium on this site is Quote-only, and no price figure appears on any pet carrier entry.

What do we not publish, and why?

There is no pet insurance average on this site. A meaningful average would need a fixed profile (a stated species, breed, age, location, deductible, limit, and reimbursement percentage) published by an official source. No free official source publishes one in a usable form. The figures that circulate in roundups are usually a single carrier's quote for a single pet, or an average of quotes from a small panel of carriers, presented without the profile that would make it checkable. Publishing such a figure as "the average" would mislead more than it would inform, so we do not publish it.

The same reasoning applies to "cheapest pet insurance" claims. A cheapest list is only honest if the prices were collected for the same pet, at the same time, by the same method, and the method is printed on the page. Our sample-rate shopping plan is designed to do exactly that. Until it is done, there is no cheapest list on this site.

What we do not do

• We do not publish pet insurance premiums. Every pet insurance premium on this site is Quote-only: no price figure appears on the entry at all, not even a "from" figure. The entry links to the carrier's own quote route instead.
• We do not invent ratings. No carrier rating appears without its source, scale, and date stated on the same card. No "best company" verdict is drawn from anything less than a published method.
• We do not publish savings claims. No savings figure appears unless the basis (who saved, versus what, over what period, from what data, dated) is stated beside it in the same view. If the basis cannot be stated, the figure does not appear.
• We do not give veterinary or medical advice. Our pages explain how pet insurance works and what to compare. They do not tell you what treatment your pet needs, whether a condition is covered, or whether a policy is right for your pet's health. Those are questions for your veterinarian and for the policy wording.
• We do not take payment for placement. No carrier pays to appear, to rank higher, or to be shown first. Carrier entries are listed by the cover they offer, not by any payment.
• We do not show carrier logos, "Buy now" buttons, or lead-generation funnels. We ask for your ZIP code and basic facts only. We never ask for contact details, and nothing you enter travels to a carrier.

How often we update

Pages are reviewed at least every six months; the next review is due May 2027. Carrier facts are re-checked against the carrier's own published information at each review. When a carrier changes its cover options, waiting periods, or age limits, the page is updated and the "Last reviewed" date changes with it. When a source publishes a correction, we correct the figure and add a correction note under our corrections policy. Sample rates, once published, will be re-collected on a stated schedule and re-dated each time.

Limitations: read this before you decide

• No comparison covers every insurer. Carriers that do not publish usable information, write only in a few states, or sell only through agents may not appear here at all. Check a carrier's own site for the final price and the full policy wording.
• The policy document is the contract. Our pages summarise cover; they do not replace the policy. Waiting periods, pre-existing condition rules, exclusions, and definitions are in the policy wording, and the wording governs.
• Pre-existing conditions are generally not covered. The exact definition of a pre-existing condition, and any waiting period that applies, is in the policy wording. Read it before you buy.
• A sample rate, when published, is a snapshot for a sample pet on a stated date. Your pet's breed, age, and location will move your price away from it.
• Sorting, filtering, and side-by-side comparison need JavaScript. Without JavaScript the full comparison is shown on the page, but it cannot be re-sorted, filtered, or compared side by side in the browser.

Sources

1. State departments of insurance and state statutes, as cited on each page (pet insurance rules, waiting-period and disclosure requirements).
2. Carrier-published policy information (cover types, waiting periods, pre-existing condition rules, age limits, breed restrictions, quote routes).
3. National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Complaint Index (public index, three-year window). https://www.naic.org/
4. AM Best, financial strength ratings (as cited where shown). https://www.ambest.com/

Questions or corrections: hello@countrypilot.net (email only) or our corrections policy. Content reviewed by editors Enu Zehra and Ms. Kakka.

More methodology: Auto insurance methodology · Home insurance methodology · Life insurance methodology · Health insurance methodology · Travel insurance methodology

See also: How we calculate averages · Editorial policy · Corrections policy