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About this policy
This page documents how Compare Pet Coverage produces, fact-checks, updates, and corrects its content. It exists for two reasons: because trustworthy publications make their methodology visible, and because pet-vertical content online is full of stale, wrong, or affiliate-distorted information — and we'd rather show you how we work than ask you to take it on faith.
This policy applies to every article on the site. Today, that means every post is written, researched, and verified by Alan Percal, who founded the site. As the team grows, this policy will be updated to reflect any new authors and their credentials.
It sits alongside our affiliate disclosure (how we make money), terms of service (the agreement governing your use of the site), and privacy policy (what we do with data).
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Editorial independence
Editorial decisions on Compare Pet Coverage are made independently of any commercial relationship. No brand pays for coverage. No partner has approval rights over what we write or how we conclude. No affiliate program changes the order of products in a comparison or the verdict in a review.
We believe — and we've structured the work so — that if the affiliate model ever pulled in a direction that conflicted with editorial honesty, editorial honesty wins. The full statement of how we keep these separate lives in our affiliate disclosure.
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Sources we use (and don't)
Authority sources we trust
For factual claims, we cite primary sources whenever possible:
- Veterinary professional associations — American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), Veterinary Cancer Society, and similar specialty groups.
- Peer-reviewed journals — JAVMA (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association), Veterinary Surgery, Frontiers in Veterinary Science, and other indexed publications.
- University veterinary programs — UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis, Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida small animal hospital, and similar academic sources.
- Government data — Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), state insurance regulators.
- Insurance industry data — North American Pet Health Insurance Association (NAPHIA) for market-level statistics.
- Insurer-published policy documents — for any specific claim about an insurance company's terms (waiting periods, exclusions, age caps), we go to the insurer's official help center, FAQ, or sample policy — never to a third-party review of those terms.
- Pet poison control — ASPCA Animal Poison Control and Pet Poison Helpline, both for clinical reference and for direct phone numbers we publish.
Sources we treat as secondary
Reporting from established consumer publications (CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, etc.) is acceptable when it sources its own claims to primary documents. We follow the citation chain to the primary source whenever possible.
Sources we won't cite
- Anonymous forums and unverified personal blogs — too easy to propagate errors.
- Third-party affiliate-supported "review" sites as the source for insurer policy details. Their incentive structure rewards optimism about partner brands. The same handful of factual errors get copy-pasted across these sites for years (a frequently-cited example: the persistent claim that one major pet insurer has a 12-month cruciate-ligament waiting period, which has not matched that insurer's published policy in a long time).
- Scraped or auto-generated content with no clear authorship.
- AI-generated articles from other publishers without a verifiable human review process.
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How we fact-check
This is where the actual work lives. Our fact-checking process is built on a few specific principles:
We verify before we cite
Before any number, statistic, or insurance term is published, we verify it against a primary source. That includes things that feel "well known" — pet vertical facts move quickly enough that yesterday's verified number can be wrong today. Vet costs, insurance company policies, and statistics from peer-reviewed studies get re-verified specifically before they appear in a post.
We go to the insurer, not the aggregator
For any claim about a specific insurance company's terms — waiting periods, exclusions, age caps, deductible structure — we read the insurer's published help center or sample policy. Third-party review sites that depend on commission revenue from those same insurers have a structural reason to gloss over unflattering terms, and they often carry stale or outright wrong information through search rankings for years. We don't repeat them.
We maintain a list of known errors
We keep an internal running list of factual errors we've seen propagate through pet-vertical content — wrongly identified insurance underwriters, overstated waiting periods, misattributed statistics, common name confusions — and we cross-check every relevant post against that list before publishing.
Every post is dated
Every published article is marked with the date its facts were verified, and the article's structured-data dateModified timestamp is bumped whenever the content changes materially. If a post hasn't been touched in a while, that's visible to you and to search engines — we don't pretend old verifications are recent.
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Corrections and updates
Scheduled re-verification
We re-verify the recurring facts that show up across our content roughly quarterly — pricing data, insurer policy terms, statistics from primary studies, government numbers. When something has changed, the affected posts are updated and the modified date is bumped.
Out-of-cycle updates
We also update posts when we learn an insurer has changed terms, a study has been updated or retracted, a recommended product has been recalled or discontinued, a vet cost range has shifted significantly, or any other event that meaningfully affects what we wrote.
How we handle errors
If we find an error in a published post — or if a reader points one out — we correct it as soon as we can verify the right answer. If the correction is material (it changes a recommendation, a number, or a factual claim that a reader might have relied on), we note the correction in the article. Minor copy-edits and typo fixes are made silently.
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AI and human authorship
We use AI tools — including large language models — as research and drafting aids. They help us outline articles, summarize source material, and accelerate first drafts. They are useful in the same way a research assistant or a writing collaborator is useful.
They do not write the final published version, and they do not get the last word on a fact. Every claim that gets published has been verified by a human against a primary source. We don't auto-publish anything. We don't put out content that hasn't been read, edited, and fact-checked by a person.
If our use of AI changes meaningfully — for example, if we begin labeling individual posts as AI-assisted, or if we adopt new tooling that warrants a more specific disclosure — this section will be updated.
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Medical and veterinary disclaimer
We are not veterinarians. Our content is researched, fact-checked, and reviewed against authoritative sources, but it is for general informational and educational purposes only. Nothing on Compare Pet Coverage is a substitute for a consultation with a licensed veterinarian who can examine your specific pet.
For any decision that affects your pet's health — symptoms, treatment, medications, surgical recommendations, dietary changes, emergencies — consult a licensed veterinarian. The full disclaimer language is in Section 3 of our Terms of Service.
If your pet is in an emergency, call your vet, the nearest emergency veterinary hospital, the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at 888-426-4435, or the Pet Poison Helpline at 855-764-7661.
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How to flag an error
Found something we got wrong? Please tell us. We'd much rather hear about a mistake from a reader than have it sit on the page.
Email hello@comparepetcoverage.com with a quick description of what's wrong and, if possible, the URL of the post. We respond to corrections within roughly three business days. If your report leads to a material correction, we'll thank you in the article (or anonymously, if you'd prefer).
The same address is good for any other editorial question — methodology, sourcing, why we covered something a particular way. Plain English in, plain English back.
