Covered Egg
MetLife files two different pet wellness products: the $125–$575 scheduled tiers you can buy online, and a richer "standard preventive care" plan sold only through an agent, priced like real insurance instead of a coupon book. The filings show exactly what ticking that box does to your premium — including a 21–31% multiplier on the sick-care premium itself.
Health insurers file a public, itemised accounting of every dollar they collect. In 2024, 87.4 cents of every major-medical premium dollar came back as claims — 70.1 on medical care and 16.8 on prescription drugs after rebates. Brokers took 2.2 cents, taxes 2.3, and 1.1 cents was all the insurer had left.
PURE's own homeowners rate filings assume 45% of premium comes back as claims. Chubb files 59%, Cincinnati 58%, the market 58%. Its annual statement shows where the difference goes: 40.2 cents of every premium dollar to underwriting expense, against 24.8 at Chubb and 30.9 at Cincinnati — and five straight years of underwriting losses anyway.
Comprehensive health returns 91% of every premium dollar as claims. Mortgage insurance and earthquake cover return single digits. The same measure, run across every line of insurance sold in America, over eight years of experience.
AKC Pet Insurance's California policies lose their paid 365-day pre-existing condition buy-in on July 1, 2026, when Independence American folds the PetPartners program into its consolidated V4 product. The old manual priced the option at a 0.015 factor — about $11 a year. The new one doesn't have it.
Insurers price you partly on a credit-based insurance score, but in most states the law only makes them refresh it once every three years. If your credit improved after you bought the policy, you can spend years paying a rate built on the old you — unless you use a little-known right to demand a re-rate once a year.
Auto and home insurers increasingly price loyalty as a cost — your tenure becomes a rating input that pushes your renewal up, because customers who have stayed for years are less likely to leave over an increase. Switching these policies is cheap and frictionless, which is exactly why shopping defeats it.
Auto insurers price loyalty as a cost and the fix is to shop every few years. Pet insurance has the same loyalty penalty — the same dog is rated 3x higher after years of enrollment — but pre-existing exclusions mean you usually can't switch your way out. That's why the carrier you pick on day one matters more than in almost any other policy you own.
The premium for an essentially identical policy can swing by double digits depending on how you buy it — online or by phone, through an agent or direct, all at once or month to month, today or next week. The reasons are sitting in the filings.
The loss ratio is the most useful single number for judging whether a policy is priced for you or for the shareholder. Here is what it measures and where to find it.
It isn't a penalty for filing claims. Your pet's age is one of the largest rating factors in the policy, and the yearly increase is written into the filing the day you sign up.
Every rate change an American insurer makes is filed with a state regulator — in public — usually weeks or months before it reaches your renewal. Here is how to read one.
Before you go
Insurers must file rate changes with state regulators, typically months before they take effect. Pick your line and carrier to see what’s already on the docket.