United States · Health coverage

COBRA cost calculator

COBRA lets you keep your employer's group health plan after your employment ends — but the subsidy ends with the job. While you worked, the employer quietly paid most of the premium; on COBRA, the Department of Labor explains, you may be charged the entire premium — your share plus the employer's — plus a 2% administrative charge: up to 102% of the cost to the plan. That is why the COBRA letter shocks people. Enter your plan's full monthly premium below and this calculator applies the 102% rule and totals it over the months you choose.

The 102% rule, and why the bill jumps

COBRA — the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act — requires group health plans of employers with 20 or more employees in the prior year to offer continuation coverage when a qualifying event, such as termination of employment (other than for gross misconduct) or a reduction in hours, would otherwise end it. The coverage itself is the same coverage: the Department of Labor's worker guidance notes you keep the same plan, co-pays and deductibles as active employees. What changes is who pays. The plan may require the qualified beneficiary to pay the entire premium — the part deducted from your paycheck and the part the employer contributed, which most employees never see itemised — plus up to 2% more for administration. Hence 102%: not a penalty, just the full price of the plan plus a handling margin. If your separation agreement says the employer will subsidise COBRA for some months — a common severance-package item, see the severance calculator — that subsidy comes from the agreement, not from COBRA itself.

A worked example: from $120 to $459

Suppose your plan's full monthly premium is $450 — of which you saw $120 deducted from your pay while the employer covered the other $330. On COBRA the charge can be $450 × 102% = $459 a month: an increase of $339, or 282.5% over what you were used to paying, and $8,262 across the standard 18 months. The plan did not get more expensive; the invisible contribution disappeared. A larger example shows the family-plan scale: a $1,850 full premium becomes $1,887 a month, or $33,966 over 18 months — a number worth knowing before the election deadline starts running, which is the entire point of running it here first.

How long COBRA lasts

The maximum period depends on the qualifying event. For termination of employment or a reduction in hours, the standard maximum is 18 months. A disability determination can extend that by 11 months, to 29 months. Certain events affecting dependants — the employee's entitlement to Medicare, divorce or legal separation, the employee's death, or a child losing dependent status — carry a 36-month maximum. Coverage can end sooner for reasons the plan will state, most obviously if premiums stop being paid. The calculator accepts 1 to 36 months so you can price the period that actually applies to your event.

The two deadlines that matter

COBRA runs on clocks, and missing one is expensive. You generally have 60 days to elect continuation coverage after the election notice is provided. If you elect, you then have 45 days to make the first payment — and that first payment reaches back to cover the period since your coverage would otherwise have ended, so electing late does not make the early months free. The practical use of those windows: because election is retroactive once paid, many people use the 60 days to compare COBRA against the alternatives — a spouse's plan, or marketplace coverage, where losing job-based coverage normally opens a special enrolment window — before committing to the first premium. Compare with the real 102% figure in hand, from the calculator above, rather than with the paycheck deduction you remember.

Common questions

Where do I find the "full premium" the calculator asks for?

In the COBRA election notice your plan administrator sends — it must state the cost of continuation coverage. Your benefits department can also give you the full cost of the plan; your pay stub alone won't, because it shows only the employee share.

Can the charge be more than 102%?

For regular COBRA continuation, 102% of the cost to the plan is the ceiling the Department of Labor describes. (During the 11-month disability extension the plan may charge up to 150% for those extra months — price that period separately if it applies to you.)

Does every employer have to offer COBRA?

No. The federal requirement covers group health plans of employers with 20 or more employees in the prior year. Smaller employers may be covered by a state "mini-COBRA" law instead — your state insurance department publishes those rules.

Can I keep just dental or vision?

Continuation applies to the group health coverage the plan offers, and the election notice will spell out which benefits are included and what each costs. Enter the premium for the coverage you are actually electing.

Image credits

The doctor-in-office photograph is by Shixart1985, via Wikimedia Commons, license CC BY 2.0. The doctor-examining-patient photograph is a work of the U.S. federal government, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain. The medical waiting room photograph is by Elsa G. Razo, via Wikimedia Commons, license CC BY-SA 4.0. All three were already in this site's licensed collection; all were converted to WebP and resized. No image on this page was generated by AI.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Labor — COBRA Continuation Coverage: 20+ employees, up to 102% of the cost to the plan (dol.gov/general/topic/health-plans/cobra)
• U.S. Department of Labor, EBSA — FAQs About COBRA Continuation Health Coverage for Workers: maximum periods, election and payment deadlines, same coverage (dol.gov/agencies/ebsa)

The calculator applies the 102% figure described on this page to the full premium entered, rounds the monthly amount to cents (it is the billed figure), and multiplies by the months chosen. Expected outputs were derived independently of the code and the engine is tested against them.