Editorial Standards

Two questions come up more than any others: where do these premium numbers come from, and what happens when a reader tells us one is wrong? This page answers both.

Where the premium ranges come from

Two sources feed the calculator and the guides on this site. Most of what you see is our own pricing model, built around published US accident-and-illness premium patterns by age, coverage tier, breed, and region, and we label it plainly as our estimate rather than dressing it up as an independent study. When we cite an industry figure directly, such as NAPHIA's reported average premium or a specific insurer's deductible structure, the source sits right in the sentence next to the number, not buried in a footnote. No insurer or comparison partner has ever paid to be recommended, ranked higher, or left out of a comparison.

What "not insurance advice" means here

Jessica Martinez writes the guides on this site, and her background is in personal finance and consumer cost reporting, not underwriting policies or practicing veterinary medicine. Nothing published here tells you which specific insurer to buy from, and nothing here tells you whether your cat's symptoms need a vet visit; the first call belongs to a licensed agent reading your actual plan documents, the second to a vet who has examined your cat. When a guide describes how claims, exclusions, or waiting periods generally work across the industry, it says so plainly as a general pattern, and where we're genuinely unsure a claim holds true for every insurer, we say that too instead of smoothing it over.

How often things get updated

Guides are revisited on a rolling basis, and the calculator's underlying ranges are checked whenever premium data shifts enough to matter, at minimum twice a year. Every page carries an "Updated" date so you can judge how current it is at a glance.

Corrections

Spot a stale figure, a broken link, or a claim that doesn't add up? Tell us through the contact page and describe what you found. We trace it back to the original source before touching anything. Once confirmed, we fix the page and move its updated date forward; for anything that meaningfully shifts a premium range or a coverage claim, we add a short note explaining what changed rather than editing it away quietly.

What we won't do