Home/Calculators/COBRA cost estimator
Your employer was quietly paying about three quarters of your premium. COBRA keeps the same plan and hands you the whole bill, plus up to 2% for administration. Here’s the real number.
What you'll need
What was coming out of your paycheck for coverage, and how often you were paid.
What you get
The full premium your employer was covering, what COBRA costs at 102% of it, and the four deadlines that start the day you leave.
Most people on COBRA after a job loss are eligible for up to 18 months.
Losing job-based coverage opens a 60-day Special Enrollment Period on the marketplace. Put a quote here to compare, or leave it at zero to skip.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, COBRA continuation coverage. Checked 27 July 2026.
It’s retroactive. You have 60 days to decide and 45 more to pay. If you elect within that window, coverage backdates to the day your old plan ended, so going uninsured for a few weeks while you job-hunt isn’t as reckless as it sounds. If nothing happens, you never elect and never pay. If something does, you elect and it’s covered. That optionality is free.
COBRA is often not the cheapest option. Losing employer coverage triggers a Special Enrollment Period, and marketplace subsidies are based on your current income, which, if you’ve just lost a job, may be much lower than last year’s. Plenty of people elect COBRA without ever checking.
But switching resets your deductible. If you’re halfway through the year and have already met a large deductible, a new plan starts you at zero. That reset can wipe out the premium saving, and it is the one genuinely good reason to pay COBRA’s higher price.
COBRA lets a plan charge up to 102% of the full cost of coverage: the employer’s share plus yours, plus a 2% administration fee. This tool multiplies the full monthly premium by 1.02 (or 1.00 if your employer waives the fee) and by the number of months.
If you don’t have the election notice, the estimate works backwards: if you paid $450 a month and your employer covered 75%, the full premium was $450 ÷ 0.25 = $1,800. That 75% is an editable assumption, defaulted from KFF’s 2025 employer survey, where the average family premium was $26,993 with workers contributing $6,850, an employer share of about 75%.
Disabled beneficiaries who qualify for the 11-month extension can be charged up to 150% during months 19–29. This calculator covers the standard 102% case only.
Compare two or three plans by total annual cost and find the break-even point.
Which account nets you more, and how much of an FSA you would forfeit.
Premium is only half the decision. The deductible, coinsurance and out-of-pocket maximum decide the rest. Use the free true-cost calculator to compare two plans properly, or have Benefits Decoder read a whole benefits guide and price every option.
Not insurance or legal advice. This is arithmetic on figures you enter, using the statutory COBRA maximum. Your plan’s actual rates, your eligibility, and your deadlines are governed by your election notice and plan documents. Employers with fewer than 20 employees are generally not subject to federal COBRA, though many states have similar continuation rules.
Nothing you type here is sent anywhere. The calculator runs entirely in your browser.