An average premium is the most quoted number in this category and the least useful one. It blends a nine-year-old French Bulldog in San Francisco with a two-year-old domestic shorthair in Arkansas, then reports the middle. Your price comes from seven inputs, and once you know what each one does, the average stops being a mystery and starts being a sanity check. This page walks all seven, shows the dog and cat gap, explains why the number climbs every renewal, and says plainly what we can and cannot publish about our own quotes.
How much does pet insurance cost per month?
NAPHIA's most recent published monthly figures, covering 2024, are $62.44 a month for dogs and $32.21 a month for cats on accident and illness policies. For 2025, NAPHIA's 2026 report publishes annual figures only: $836 for dogs and $435 for cats. Other publishers measure different things and land elsewhere, which is worth seeing side by side.
| Source | Dogs | Cats | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| NAPHIA, 2025 data | $836 a year | $435 a year | Actual in-force premium, industry-wide |
| NAPHIA, 2024 data | $749.29 a year | $386.47 a year | Actual in-force premium, industry-wide |
| Insurify, June 2025 | $516 a year | $276 a year | Quoted prices on a comparison site |
| Nationwide, reported 2026 | about $81 a month | about $43 a month | One insurer's book |
| Healthy Paws, 2025 | about $60 a month | about $30 a month | One insurer's estimate, citing Pawlicy Advisor |
The spread is not an error. NAPHIA's participants represent about 99 percent of written pet health insurance premium in North America, so its figures measure what policyholders are actually paying. Comparison sites such as Insurify measure what their users are quoted, and those quotes skew toward higher deductibles and lower reimbursement rates. Read NAPHIA as the industry number and everything below it as a shopping number.
Why is the national average not your price?
A national average is a blend of every policy in force, and no real pet sits at the blend. Three things pull an individual quote away from it. The first is that averages include accident-only policies and lean accident and illness policies alongside unlimited plans with 90 percent reimbursement. The second is geography: Insurify's June 2025 analysis put the dog average at $348 a year in Arkansas and $696 in Alaska, a spread of roughly double across state lines. The third is age, because a policy priced for a puppy and a policy priced for an eleven-year-old are different products at the same brand.
Treat the average as a boundary check. If a quote lands at four times the NAPHIA figure, something in your inputs is unusual, and that is worth understanding before you buy.
What seven inputs set your premium?
Seven inputs set your premium: species, breed, age, zip code, deductible, reimbursement rate and annual limit. The first four describe your pet and you cannot change them. The last three are levers you choose, and they move the price more than switching brands does.
- Species. Dogs cost roughly twice what cats cost, at $836 against $435 in NAPHIA's 2025 data.
- Breed. Insurers price the expected claim cost of the breed, which is why hereditary-risk breeds carry a loading and two same-age dogs in one zip code can be quoted very differently.
- Age at enrollment. The youngest healthy pet is the cheapest one to insure, and the price re-rates upward as the pet ages.
- Zip code. Local vet pricing flows straight into the premium. Sustainable Vet Group reports that surgeons in California and New York charge 30 to 40 percent above its quoted national figures for knee surgery, and billed costs vary widely by region and clinic.
- Deductible. Options usually run $100 to $750 a year, with $250 and $500 the common picks. Raising it lowers the monthly price and raises what you pay in a claim year.
- Reimbursement rate. Sold in tiers of 70, 80 and 90 percent, with a 100 percent option at Figo.
- Annual limit. Commonly $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000, with unlimited benefits available at Trupanion.
Two smaller modifiers sit on top. Some insurers also ask your pet's sex, and multi-pet discounts of 5 to 10 percent apply after the base rate is set.
Why do dogs cost about twice as much as cats?
NAPHIA's 2025 averages put dogs at $836 a year against $435 for cats, and the gap is a claims-cost gap rather than a pricing preference. Dogs are larger, so drug doses, anesthesia and surgical time all cost more. Dogs carry the orthopedic caseload: knee and hip surgery are four-figure procedures billed almost entirely to dogs. And dogs are seen more expensively. AVMA survey data puts the average amount owners actually paid per veterinary visit at $214 for dogs against $138 for cats in 2024, with billed costs varying widely by region and clinic.
The market reflects the same split. NAPHIA reports that dogs made up 74.9 percent of insured US pets at the end of 2025 and cats 25.1 percent, and that US dog penetration reached 5.99 percent against 2.29 percent for cats. One caution on the species gap. Quoted side by side at identical deductible, reimbursement and limit settings, the difference is commonly 35 to 40 percent rather than the near-half the published averages suggest. An average also reflects what each species' owners choose to buy.
Why does the price go up at every renewal?
Premiums rise at renewal because veterinary prices rise underneath them, and BLS data reported by PetfoodIndustry puts veterinary services inflation at 6.5 percent a year over the past seven years. That is the highest rate of any pet spending category. Cumulatively, veterinary services have risen 55.5 percent since 2019. Your pet also moves into an older rating band each year, so two increases stack.
The industry data shows the same pressure from the other side. NAPHIA reports US gross written premium grew 19.7 percent in 2025 while the number of insured pets grew 9.0 percent, which means existing policies got more expensive faster than new ones were sold. The strain has been visible in company behavior: Nationwide non-renewed roughly 100,000 policies in spring 2024 citing veterinary cost inflation, and ManyPets left the US market in late 2024. Budget for an increase every year, and read any first-year price as a starting point rather than a fixed cost.
What will your own quote actually say?
Our own premium figures are not published yet, and the label you will see where a price belongs is pending our first quote run. We launched in 2026 and we publish prices only from dated, identical-profile quote runs, so nothing on this site invents a monthly figure to fill a gap. When a quote card carries a collection date, that date is real and the price came from the insurer's own quote form on that day.
Until then, the honest route to your number is to run the same profile at several insurers yourself. The five-step method, including the inputs to keep identical so the comparison means something, is in how to get accurate pet insurance quotes.
What does the premium not pay for?
A standard accident and illness policy pays for treatment of injury and illness, not for routine care, and that rule surprises more first-time buyers than any other. Vaccines, annual exams, dental cleanings, parasite prevention, spay and neuter surgery and grooming all sit outside the base policy. Most insurers sell routine care as a separate wellness add-on with its own price and its own annual caps, and the NAIC treats wellness as a distinct coverage type in its market conduct reporting.
The practical effect is that the premium sits on top of your normal vet spending rather than replacing it. AVMA's 2025 survey puts annual veterinary spending at $598 per dog-owning household and $529 per cat-owning household, and most of that is routine care a standard policy will not reimburse. Billed costs vary widely by region and clinic. Budget for both figures, or the first renewal will feel like a surprise.
Three further exclusions are close to universal across US policies: pre-existing conditions, anything treated during a waiting period, and cosmetic or elective procedures. Waiting periods themselves run about 1 to 15 days for accidents and about 14 to 30 days for illnesses, with some insurers applying up to six months to orthopedic conditions. A cheap quote that clears a waiting period two weeks after your pet's first symptom is not cheap, it is void for that condition.
How many US pets are actually insured?
Very few: NAPHIA puts US market penetration at 4.27 percent of pets at the end of 2025, covering 6.98 million animals out of a population AVMA counts at 87.3 million dogs and 76.3 million cats. Across North America the total was 7.6 million pets. Enrollment grew 9.0 percent in 2025, so the category is expanding quickly from a small base.
That number is worth holding in mind while reading any cost guide, including this one. Pet insurance is still a minority purchase in the US, most owners pay vet bills directly, and the market has not yet been priced against mass adoption. It also explains why premium growth outpaces enrollment growth: insurers are re-pricing an existing book faster than they are adding a new one.
Is the premium worth what it buys?
Across the sector, about 69 cents of every premium dollar came back out as claims in 2025, according to AM Best's population average loss ratio of 69.1. That is the honest counter-case for this whole section. Averaged across all buyers, pet insurance pays out less than it takes in, because it has to cover claims handling, acquisition and profit. Anyone who tells you insurance is a money-saving purchase is describing the exception rather than the rule.
What it buys instead is protection against the tail. NAPHIA reports the largest single US dog claim of 2025 at $66,600 and the largest cat claim at $51,600, both extremes of the year rather than typical outcomes. A 2025 Synchrony study, run by a lender that sells veterinary financing, puts lifetime dog care at $22,125 to $60,602. Billed costs vary widely by region and clinic. If a $5,000 bill next month would force a treatment decision on price grounds, the loss ratio is beside the point. If you hold a funded reserve, it is the whole point. The full break-even math is in is pet insurance worth it, and the underlying bill ranges are in what vet care actually costs.
Which cost page answers your question?
The right next page depends on which of the seven inputs you are trying to price. If you want species-level averages and the age curve, start with dogs or cats. If your pet is a breed with known hereditary risk, the breed page matters more than the species average. If you already know your pet's profile and want to cut the monthly figure, the deductible page is where the money is.
- Species averages and what drives them: dog insurance costs and cat insurance costs
- Breed loading and hereditary risk: pet insurance costs by breed
- The lever that moves your price most: deductible impact on premiums
- The species gap in one place: cat versus dog premiums