How pet insurance is priced

A pet insurance price does not come from a single price list. The insurer multiplies together tables from the rate filing it submits to the state regulator. Below are the formulas of three Florida programs, the age curve, the tenure factor and a worked example on one dog. The dog is a male French Bulldog in ZIP 33545 (Wesley Chapel, Florida), on an unlimited plan with 90% reimbursement and a $1,000 deductible.

The formula

Insurers call the order of multiplication the Rate Order of Calculation. For IAIC (Pumpkin, Spot, ASPCA) it is set out in approved manual FL_20260724 (filing 26-024273), in force in Florida from 1 October 2026:

Monthly premium = Base rate × Limit × Deductible × Reimbursement × Age × Breed × Territory (ZIP) × Sex × Tenure

Values from this manual:

• Monthly base rate: Pumpkin $112.95, Spot $98.06, the PTZ channel (which sells ASPCA) $105.94.
• Unlimited limit: 1.804. $1,000 deductible: 0.564. 80% reimbursement: 0.769 (90% = 1.0).
• Breed: French Bulldog 1.771, one of the most expensive breeds in the table. Mixed breeds and Labradors are around 1.0.
• Age: under 1, 0.796; 1, 0.730; 2, 0.706; 3, 0.753; 4, 0.821; 5, 0.974; 6, 1.140; 7, 1.338; 8, 1.662; 9, 1.989; 10, 2.316; 11, 2.536; 12, 2.840; 13, 3.130; 14, 3.229; 15, 3.329, and higher after that.
• Sex: male 1.000, female 0.983. Territory for ZIP 335xx: 1.000.
• Policy tenure: year 0, 1.000; 1, 1.031; 2, 1.063; 3, 1.095; 5, 1.164; 8, 1.275; 10, 1.354; 13, 1.483. This is a loyalty surcharge: each year with the company adds about 3% to the price.

Discounts are not part of this formula. The same rating algorithm applies them in a later step, to the premium already calculated: premium × (1 − discount). The discounts are listed in section 2 of the manual: 10% for several pets, a 10% healthy pet discount at renewal, and others.

Pets Best is also underwritten by IAIC, but under a different program: filing 26-026451, in force from 2 September 2026. Its formula is annual: $928.12 × ZIP (0.7351 for 335xx) × a reimbursement-and-limit factor (90%/unlimited 1.2075) × a deductible-and-limit factor ($1,000/unlimited 0.4147) × Elite plan options (1 + 0.11 for exam fees + 0.11 for medications + 0.0184 for rehabilitation = 1.2384) × breed (French Bulldog 2.1778) × age. The age table for this breed: 3, 0.9021; 4, 1.0063; 5, 1.2286; 6, 1.4793; 7, 1.8637; 8, 2.3213; 9, 2.8246; 10, 3.6608; 11, 4.1143; 12 and older, 4.4799, and it stops rising there. Pets Best has no tenure factor and no healthy pet discount.

Lemonade priced its policies in filing 26-034247, for new policies from 18 November 2026. The formula: annual base $559.65 × ZIP × breed (French Bulldog 2.0766) × age at the policy start date × sex × a combined deductible-reimbursement-limit factor × medications 1.2. Fixed add-ons come on top (vet visit fees, $123 a year), along with other paid options. The combined factor at a $1,000 deductible and 90%: unlimited 1.0554, $100,000 limit 0.8783. The manual prices an unlimited plan too, but Lemonade’s online quote in Florida in October 2026 offered at most $100,000 a year. Age is re-rated at every renewal: 4, 1.12; 5, 1.35; 6, 1.62; 7, 1.96; 8, 2.38; 9, 3.37; 10, 4.02; 11, 4.64; 12 and older, 5.01. The factors from age 9 include a 16.5% loading. The actuarial memorandum applies it to renewals only.

Trupanion handles age differently. It sets the age factor at enrollment and never changes it. The price rises only when the company revises its rates for everyone. We have not obtained Trupanion’s Florida rate pages. Its California formula (filing 25-2461) is on the company page.

The age curve and “birthday pricing”

The tables show the main point: for most products the price rises with the dog’s age. The formula is built that way; inflation has nothing to do with it. At IAIC the age factor goes from 0.821 at 4 to 2.316 at 10, 2.8 times as high; from 4 to 13 it rises 3.8 times. At Pets Best it rises 3.6 times from 4 to 10, but stops at 12. At Lemonade it also rises 3.6 times from 4 to 10, and the sharpest step is from 8 to 9: +41% for one birthday. This is “birthday pricing”. At renewal the insurer prices a dog one year older, and a clean health record does not change that.

Trupanion builds its advertising on this: the price will not go up just because your pet had a birthday. That is true. But its own shareholder letter says: “Age at enrollment pricing doesn’t mean a monthly rate remains locked in.”

Tenure and the healthy-pet discount

A tenure surcharge like IAIC’s is rare, and it works against the customer: about +3% a year for staying. The insurer reasons that long-standing customers claim more than new ones with a clean record. The customer sees it differently: once the dog has been sick, leaving is not an option. The healthy pet discount is 10% at renewal if the insurer reimbursed no claim in the 12 months before its check, made 90 days before renewal. It is not a factor in the formula but a rule from the discounts section of the same manual. In the first three years it partly offsets the tenure surcharge, but only for owners who did not use the insurance.

The conclusion for a healthy dog with nothing in its record: leaving and coming back as a new customer a year or two later costs about the same as staying. Tenure resets, but you also lose the healthy pet discount. A dog with a diagnosis can no longer leave; see pre-existing conditions.

Example: the same dog, enrolled at age 4

Unlimited plan (or the highest limit the filing offers), 90% reimbursement, $1,000 deductible, enrolled at age 4, rates from the latest Florida filings. The table is computed from the filing data when the site is built. It shows 10-year totals at today’s rates and with rates rising 10% a year.

At today’s rates the table shows only the effect of age. In reality general rate revisions come on top (why prices rise), so the scenario with yearly increases is closer to the truth. Trupanion’s total is calculated differently: the starting quote times (1 + the yearly revision) to the power of the number of years. If the starting price is $X, at +12% a year it becomes 1.76X after 5 years and 3.1X after 10. At +15% it becomes 2.0X and 4.0X.

What one dog costs over its life with one insurer

The key question: how much will you pay if you insure a puppy and renew with one company for its whole life? The same dog: male French Bulldog, ZIP 33545, unlimited plan, 90% reimbursement, $1,000 deductible. The policy starts before age 1 and renews every year, with no discounts and with the monthly payment fee. The table is computed from the filing data when the site is built: at today’s rates and with rates rising 7%, 10% and 15% a year. Charts for each company are on the Florida page.

What the table shows.

First, in the first three years the price barely changes or even falls. At IAIC the age factor is 0.796 for a puppy and 0.706 at age 2; at Pets Best, 0.9951 and 0.8928. So the starting price tells you nothing about the future.

Second, from age 5–6 the price climbs steeply. At IAIC, by age 9 age and tenure together give a factor 3.3 times the puppy’s (1.989 × 1.314 against 0.796).

Third, even at today’s rates the difference between companies over the dog’s life runs to tens of thousands of dollars for the same coverage. Rate increases widen the gap.

Fourth, the later years cost more than the early ones. You pay most of the total after the dog turns 8. That is why the choice of insurer matters even when the terms look alike.

What the table leaves out.

General rate increases. In Florida in 2026 the approved increases were +31.31% for the Pumpkin channel, +12.53% for Spot and +12.85% for the PTZ channel (26-024273), +24.4% for Pets Best (26-026451) and +22.0% for Lemonade (26-034247). So the scenarios with yearly increases are closer to reality than the column without them.

The deductible and the 10% of each bill that you pay yourself. With a few serious illnesses or injuries over a lifetime, that adds $5,000–15,000.

Discounts. Pumpkin and Lemonade take 10% off for several pets, Pets Best 5%. Partner discounts take off another 5–10%.

Trupanion. Its price is fixed by age at enrollment. The 13-year total is the starting monthly price × 12 × the sum of the yearly revision multipliers. At +10% a year that is the starting price × 294; at 12%, × 336; at 15%, × 412. A puppy at $100 a month costs $29,000–41,000 over 13 years.

A website quote is not the filed rate

Websites lag behind rate filings. In October 2026 Spot’s website still priced on the old manual, although the new one had been in force since 1 October. On 8 October the Pets Best website quoted on the December 2025 rate. Yet a new rate had been in force since 2 September; for the 90%/unlimited plan it raised the base rate and the reimbursement-and-limit factor together by 38.8%. If you buy at the old price, your first renewal will be on the new rate. Nobody “raised” the price; the website was showing yesterday’s. Only the regulator’s filings show this: see how to read a rate filing. How to compare policies by lifetime cost is in how to choose.

Sources

• Florida OIR, IRFS: IAIC 26-024273 (Pumpkin, Spot, PTZ channel; approved manual FL_20260724, from 1 October 2026), IAIC 26-026451 (Pets Best, from 2 September 2026), Lemonade 26-034247 (manual edition November 2026; new policies from 18 November 2026, renewals from 2 January 2027).
• California Department of Insurance, file 25-2461 (Trupanion, from 19 July 2026).
• Trupanion: 2024 shareholder letter, “Our pricing promise” page.
• Checkbook, March 2022: study of prices by age.