Before you buy a policy, you’d probably want to know how many people have complained about that company. Here’s the part almost nobody tells you: in most states, that number genuinely doesn’t exist yet, not because it’s hidden, but because regulators haven’t built a way to track it separately.
Pet Insurance Company Complaints: The Data Gap Regulators Admit
Every state has a public tool for checking an insurance company’s complaint history. Most people never use it, and honestly, for pet insurance specifically, using it correctly takes a bit more than typing in a company name.
Pet insurance company complaints don’t show up the way you’d expect. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the body that actually oversees this data, has said so itself.
What regulators actually admit
In NAIC’s own publication, “A Regulator’s Guide to Pet Insurance,” the organization states plainly that pet insurance complaints are difficult to track because the product “is not separately identified in most state complaint databases.”
The guide goes further, suggesting states could fix this by adding a dedicated pet insurance category to their complaint systems, a fix that, as of this writing, most states still haven’t made.
That’s not a small caveat. It means a complaint about a denied claim, a slow payout, or a misleading policy might be sitting in a general “accident and health” or “inland marine” bucket right now, filed correctly, just not labeled in a way that lets you search for it by product type.
Why this gap exists in the first place
Pet insurance is a relatively young product compared to auto, home, or health coverage, and state complaint-tracking systems were largely built around those older, larger categories decades ago. When a new product like pet insurance comes along, insurers often get filed under the closest existing category rather than a new one built specifically for it.
For pet insurance, that’s frequently “inland marine,” a surprisingly broad legacy category that historically covered movable property, or general “accident and health” lines. Neither was designed with pet insurance in mind, which is exactly why NAIC flagged the mismatch itself.
What people actually complain about, when it is tracked
Where pet insurance complaint data has been captured with enough detail to categorize, the recurring themes are consistent with what shows up across our own research into coverage disputes: denied claims tied to pre-existing condition determinations, disagreement over how a reimbursement was calculated, and slower-than-expected payout timelines during a stressful, often urgent situation.
What the NAIC Complaint Index actually is
The tool itself is real, free, and genuinely useful, just not perfectly built for this one product yet. NAIC’s Consumer Information Source, found at content.naic.org/cis, lets anyone search a licensed insurer’s complaint history by state and by line of business, going back three years.
Search results include a complaint index, a number comparing that company’s complaint volume to its market share. A score of 1.0 represents the national average for that line of business. Above 1.0 means more complaints than expected for a company that size; below 1.0 means fewer.
Reading the number correctly
The complaint index adjusts for company size, so a large insurer isn’t unfairly penalized just for having more total customers. A score of 2.0 doesn’t mean “twice as many complaints” in absolute terms, it means twice the complaint rate you’d expect given that company’s market share.
A distinction worth knowing
You may come across a second NAIC data source called MCAS, the Market Conduct Annual Statement. This is a more detailed complaint and claims dataset insurers file with regulators, but it’s for regulatory use only, not something you can search yourself. The Consumer Information Source described above is the version actually built for public access.
The workaround, since “pet insurance” isn’t its own filter
Here’s the practical fix for the gap NAIC itself flagged. Since pet insurance complaints often get filed under a broader category, searching by “line of business” alone can miss them entirely.
- Search by company name first, not category. Go to content.naic.org/cis and search the specific insurer or underwriter by name rather than filtering by insurance type.
- Check the underwriter, not just the brand. Many pet insurance brands are actually managing general agents selling policies underwritten by a separate insurance company. The complaint history sits with the underwriter’s legal name, which is usually disclosed in the policy’s declarations page.
- Review multiple lines of business for that company. If the insurer sells other products too, its pet insurance complaints may be folded into “accident and health” or “inland marine” results rather than a pet-specific line.
- Cross-check your state’s own department. Some state insurance departments track complaints with more granularity than NAIC’s national tool. Use our state-by-state consumer rights tool to find your state’s direct complaint line.
A sign regulators are catching up
This gap hasn’t gone unnoticed at the regulatory level. A 2025 NAIC document titled “Conducting the Pet Insurance Exam” now specifically instructs state examiners to review a pet insurer’s complaint logs for issues related to disclosures and marketing practices, a level of pet-insurance-specific regulatory attention that didn’t formally exist a few years ago.
It’s a genuinely new development, and it suggests the data gap NAIC itself acknowledged is starting to close, just not all at once, and not evenly across every state yet.
What a “normal” complaint ratio looks like
Once you do find complaint data for an insurer, knowing whether the number is actually concerning helps. Compliance-focused industry benchmarks generally use tiers like these when evaluating complaint ratios:
| Complaint ratio | General assessment |
|---|---|
| Below 1.0 | Below the industry average |
| 1.0 to 2.0 | At or near the industry average |
| 2.0 to 3.5 | Above average, worth a closer look |
| 3.5 to 5.0 | High enough to draw regulatory attention |
| Above 5.0 | Well above average |
These are general insurance industry benchmarks, not figures published specifically for pet insurers, since pet-insurance-specific benchmarking data isn’t broadly public yet either.
The one hard number we could actually verify
Dated, but real
A 2017 NAIC report cited industry-reported data showing roughly 320 pet insurance complaints filed that year, translating to an estimated complaint ratio of about 0.0174%. We’re not presenting this as current, it’s nearly a decade old, but it’s the most specific, sourced figure we could verify rather than estimate.
What to actually do if you find a red flag
- Don’t rule a company out from one number alone. NAIC’s own guidance says to weigh complaints alongside a company’s financial strength and how long it’s been licensed, not in isolation.
- Read the complaint trend, not just the total. A company with a high ratio but a clearly improving trend over the past year tells a different story than one trending upward.
- File your own complaint if something goes wrong. Every complaint filed, correctly categorized or not, still becomes part of the record regulators eventually review.
- Check your specific state too. National data is a starting point, not the full picture.
Frequently asked questions
Visit NAIC’s Consumer Information Source at content.naic.org/cis and search by the insurer’s exact legal name, not just the brand you recognize. Since pet insurance isn’t its own separate category in most state systems, searching by company name catches more relevant results than filtering by product type.
NAIC’s own regulatory guidance states that pet insurance isn’t separately identified in most state complaint databases. Complaints about pet insurers are typically filed under a broader existing category, like accident and health or inland marine, rather than a dedicated pet insurance line.
A score of 1.0 represents the national average complaint rate for a company of that size within its line of business. Scores above 1.0 indicate more complaints than expected for a company that size; scores below 1.0 indicate fewer.
Not always. Many pet insurance brands are managing general agents that market and sell policies underwritten by a separate insurance company. Complaint records are tied to the underwriter’s legal name, which you can find in your policy’s declarations page.
Yes, gradually. A 2025 NAIC examination guide now specifically directs state examiners to review a pet insurer’s complaint logs for disclosure and marketing issues, a level of dedicated regulatory attention to this product that’s genuinely recent.
Not automatically. NAIC’s own guidance recommends weighing complaint data alongside a company’s financial condition and how long it’s been licensed, rather than using complaints as the sole deciding factor.
The bottom line
Pet insurance company complaints exist, they’re just genuinely harder to isolate than complaints for auto or home insurance, and that’s coming directly from the regulators’ own acknowledgment, not a guess.
The workaround is searching by company name rather than product category, checking the actual underwriter behind your policy brand, and treating any number you find as one input, not the whole verdict.
For the state-specific side of this, including your department’s direct complaint line, see our Consumer Rights by State tool. If a rate increase is part of what’s driving your concern, our Rate Increase Tracker covers that separately, and if you’re weighing whether to switch providers over any of this, see our guide to switching pet insurance.
Sources
- NAIC, A Regulator’s Guide to Pet Insurance
- NAIC, Conducting the Pet Insurance Exam (2025)
- NAIC, How to File a Complaint and Research Complaints Against Insurance Carriers
- NAIC Consumer Information Source (CIS)
Sarah researches and writes PetCoverToday's guides, checking every cost figure, coverage term, and policy rule directly against insurers' own published pages and, where relevant, veterinary and industry sources. PetCoverToday is an independent research resource, not a licensed insurance agency, and does not sell policies directly. Read more about how we research and fact-check every guide.