Every pet insurance quote screen prices a cat below a dog, and the reason is not that insurers like cats. It is that the expected cost of a feline claim is lower, line by line, across almost every item on a veterinary invoice. This page gives the sourced averages, walks the mechanism that produces them, names the three places where the gap disappears or reverses, and asks whether a cheaper premium actually makes cat insurance the better purchase.
How much cheaper is cat insurance than dog insurance?
Cat insurance averaged $435 a year against $836 for dogs in 2025, a difference of $401 a year, on NAPHIA's 2026 State of the Industry figures. On accident-only policies in the same year NAPHIA reports $112 for cats and $190 for dogs, a difference of $78.
| Policy type, 2025 | Dogs | Cats | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accident and illness | $836 a year | $435 a year | $401 a year |
| Accident only | $190 a year | $112 a year | $78 a year |
Two ways of stating the same gap circulate and they do not agree. NAPHIA's industry averages put cats roughly 48 percent below dogs. Identical-profile quotes usually show a narrower gap, closer to 35 to 40 percent. Both can be right, because they measure different things. NAPHIA reports premium actually in force across every plan and pet in the market. A quoted gap holds the plan settings, the age and the zip code identical. Use the quoted gap while shopping and the NAPHIA gap when describing the market. Neither is a quote for your own pet, and our own dated collection has not published: pending first quote run.
Why do cats cost less to insure?
Cats cost less because the same procedure bills less on a cat, and the difference compounds down the invoice. Billed costs vary widely by region and clinic, and the species splits below come from CareCredit's national procedure cost data.
| Procedure | Dogs | Cats |
|---|---|---|
| Chemistry panel | $164 | $144 |
| X-rays, two to three views | $172 | $158 |
| Ultrasound | $483 | $323 |
| CT scan | $1,615 | $1,144 |
| Hospitalization at an emergency clinic | $1,323 | $1,144 |
| Cancer therapy, national average | $5,254 | $4,269 |
| Spay | $455 | $353 |
| Neuter | $487 | $262 |
Three mechanisms sit under that table.
- Dose and surgical time scale with body weight. Anesthesia, analgesia, antibiotics and minutes in theater are all priced against the size of the patient, so a nine-pound cat and a seventy-pound dog do not receive the same bill for the same operation.
- The ceiling is further away for cats. Money's reporting, citing MetLife, puts a whole emergency visit at $150 to $5,000 for dogs and $150 to $3,000 for cats. On intestinal blockage the same reporting gives $2,000 to $10,000 for dogs and $800 to $7,000 for cats. The floor is similar; the top of the range is not.
- Dogs carry the orthopedic tail. The most expensive named surgeries in our source file are canine ones. MetLife's cost guide puts total hip replacement at roughly $5,600 to $6,000 and femoral head ostectomy at roughly $1,800 to $2,400. PetMD puts spinal surgery at $3,000 to $8,000, before imaging adds $1,000 to $3,000.
The pattern shows up at the practice level too. AVMA data reported by Insurance Journal attributes roughly 81 percent of US veterinary practice revenue to dogs. AVMA's own survey put the average amount actually paid per visit at $214 for dogs and $138 for cats in 2024. The species detail behind each figure sits in cat insurance costs and dog insurance costs.
Where do cats cost more than dogs?
Cats bill higher than dogs on dental care and on the base fee for walking through the door. This is the honest counter-case to the whole species-discount story, and it matters because dental is a leading feline claim category rather than a rare one.
- Dental. CareCredit puts a routine cleaning at $395 for cats against $379 for dogs. Nationwide's claims analysis puts the 80th percentile of billed cost over 30 days for dental disease at $1,517 for cats and $1,284 for dogs. NAPHIA lists dental disease as the second most common cat claim condition of 2025, behind gastrointestinal issues, and it does not appear on the dog list at all.
- The base fee. CareCredit puts the emergency exam fee at $143 for cats and $135 for dogs, and the routine office visit at $57 to $130 for cats against $56 to $129 for dogs. Where a fee buys time and attention rather than materials, the species gap disappears.
- Cruciate repair. CareCredit puts TPLO at $3,453 for cats and $3,525 for dogs. Surgical complexity, not patient size, sets that price.
So the discount is not a blanket. It is concentrated in imaging, hospitalization and the size-driven surgeries, and it thins out to nothing on fee-based and dental lines. Dental cover is a specification worth reading closely for a cat, and the insurers that write it best are in best pet insurance for dental.
Is the gap between cat and dog premiums widening?
The dollar gap is widening, on NAPHIA's own published series.
| Year | Dogs | Cats | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $675.61 | $383 | about $293 |
| 2024 | $749.29 | $386.47 | about $363 |
| 2025 | $836 | $435 | $401 |
The 2023 cat figure comes from Triple-I citing NAPHIA; the rest are NAPHIA's own State of the Industry releases. The middle year is the one worth noticing, because the cat average barely moved between 2023 and 2024. Insurify's analysis of the same period found accident and illness premiums up 11 percent for dogs against 0.9 percent for cats. The dog line moves in larger dollar steps because it starts from a larger base and meets the same veterinary services inflation. That inflation has averaged 6.5 percent a year over seven years, the highest of any pet spending category, on BLS data reported in March 2026. What that does at renewal is set out in why pet insurance rates go up.
Does a cheaper premium make cat insurance the better deal?
Not automatically, because the cheaper premium also buys a smaller cushion. Saving $401 a year against a dog policy does not fund a feline emergency. Money's reporting, citing MetLife, puts a whole emergency visit for cats at $150 to $3,000. NAPHIA reported the largest single cat claim of 2025 at $51,600, for a four-year-old American Shorthair in Los Angeles treated for cancer.
Cats are the underinsured species by a wide margin. NAPHIA puts US market penetration at 2.29 percent for cats against 5.99 percent for dogs and 4.27 percent overall at the end of 2025, and cats made up 25.1 percent of insured US pets. AVMA counts 76.3 million US cats against 87.3 million dogs in its 2025 survey, so the enrollment gap is far wider than the population gap.
The counter-case deserves the same airtime. For a healthy adult indoor cat in a household with a funded emergency reserve, the low premium cuts both ways. A $435 average annual cost against a claim profile that mostly stays inside the $150 to $3,000 emergency band is a narrower margin than the dog equivalent. Self-insuring is a defensible call there. The break-even framing is in is pet insurance worth it, and the cat-specific shortlist is in best pet insurance for indoor cats.
What should a household with a cat and a dog do?
Insure both on one account and take the multi-pet discount, which runs 5 to 10 percent at most insurers. Two policies at two insurers forfeit it and split the claims history across two portals. Where the two pets differ is in the levers. The dog carries the larger tail risk, so the annual limit is the setting that matters most, with common choices of $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 and unlimited. The cat's decision turns more on the deductible, commonly $100 to $750, because the typical feline claim is smaller and a high deductible can swallow it whole.
The multi-pet shortlist is in best pet insurance for multiple pets, and the monthly budget frame for both animals is in pet insurance cost per month.