How Our Estimates Are Calculated
Every number on this site comes from one transparent model. We are not an insurer, we don't sell quotes, and we never collect your information. The estimator exists to give pet owners a realistic number before they talk to any insurance company.
The model
premium = base rate × breed factor × age factor × state factor × plan adjustments
- Base rate. The North American Pet Health Insurance Association (NAPHIA) publishes industry average premiums each year: $62.44 a month for dogs and $32.21 for cats on accident + illness plans, and $16.10 and $9.17 for accident-only. These anchor the whole model.
- Breed factor. Derived from published premium tables, with each observation normalized against its own source's baseline. A breed factor only ships when at least two independent sources agree within 20%. We call that "triangulated". Breeds with a single source get a wider range and are labeled as such on their page.
- Age factor. Interpolated from published insurer quote pairs comparing 2-year-old and 8-year-old pets across four insurers, which show premiums roughly doubling by age 8.
- State factor. Each state's published average divided by the cross-state mean, from a survey covering all 50 states plus D.C.
- Plan adjustments. Industry-typical multipliers for deductible, reimbursement rate, and annual limit. These are modeled values, and the displayed range absorbs their uncertainty.
Why we show ranges, not exact prices
Insurers price on details we don't ask for: your ZIP code, your pet's exact birthday, claim history, and each company's own filed rating plan. A single number would be false precision. The range covers the realistic spread across major insurers for the inputs you set. Treat it as what you should expect to see when you compare real quotes.
Sources
| Source | Role | Refresh cadence |
|---|---|---|
| NAPHIA State of the Industry 2025 | Base-rate anchor (industry aggregate) | annual |
| NerdWallet: Cost of Pet Insurance | Premium observations (cross-validation) | quarterly |
| AskingInsurance: Cost by Breed | Premium observations (cross-validation) | quarterly |
| Spot blog citing Bankrate breed research | Premium observations (cross-validation) | quarterly |
| PetMD: How Much Does Pet Insurance Cost | Premium observations (cross-validation) | quarterly |
| Progressive Answers: Pet Insurance Cost | Premium observations (cross-validation) | quarterly |
Our data is rechecked automatically on a regular schedule. Before any updated number goes live, it has to pass a series of checks: does it fall in a believable range, does it agree with other sources, and did it change by a plausible amount since last time? Anything that fails a check is held back instead of published. And if one of our sources breaks or disappears, we keep showing the last numbers we verified, along with the date, rather than filling gaps with guesses.
Independence
PawEstimate is reader-supported through advertising. No insurer pays for placement in our data, and no estimate is influenced by any commercial relationship.
Data last verified: 2026-08-14