How Much Is Pet Insurance? Average Costs for Dogs and Cats

What is the average cost of pet insurance?

The average cost of an accident-and-illness pet insurance policy in the US was $836 a year for dogs and $435 a year for cats in 2025. Those figures come from NAPHIA, the North American Pet Health Insurance Association, and reflect premiums paid on real policies.

Plan type	Dogs, per year	Dogs, per month	Cats, per year	Cats, per month
Accident only	$190	about $16	$112	about $9
Accident and illness	$836	about $70	$435	about $36
Accident, illness and wellness	$1,414	about $118	$859	about $72

Monthly figures are the yearly averages divided by 12. NerdWallet’s 2026 guide reports the same numbers.

The plan type matters more than anything else. An accident-only plan covers injuries but not illnesses. Accident and illness is the standard policy, and our guide to what pet insurance covers maps what each one includes.

How much is pet insurance a month, according to rate studies?

Rate studies, which collect quotes for sample pets, put accident-and-illness cover at about $43 to $87 a month for dogs and $23 to $37 for cats. The spread comes from different sample ages and policy settings.

Source	Dogs, per month	Cats, per month	Sample
NAPHIA (2025 policies)	about $70	about $36	Average of all US accident-and-illness policies
Forbes Advisor, $5,000 limit	$56	$24	21 plans, $250 deductible, 80% reimbursement
Forbes Advisor, unlimited	$87	$37	Same, with no annual limit
Insurify	$43	$23	Median of over 250,000 quotes

NAPHIA’s figure is what owners actually pay, across every age and breed. Rate studies usually quote young pets, so they skew lower. Lemonade says its own policies average around $48 a month for dogs and $27 for cats, starting at $10 a month.

How much does pet insurance cost by age?

Pet insurance costs more as your pet gets older, because older pets need more vet care. The jump is modest through middle age, then steep for seniors.

Age	Dogs, per month	Cats, per month	Source
Puppy or kitten	$40	$21	Insurify
Adult	$46	$22	Insurify
Senior	$116	$62	Insurify
2 years	$30 to $53	$14 to $24	NerdWallet, by insurer
8 years	$59 to $117	$23 to $51	NerdWallet, by insurer

Forbes Advisor’s dog quotes with a $5,000 limit show the same curve: $41 a month at 3 years, $52 at 5 and $74 at 7. Buying young also matters for coverage, not just price. Anything your pet develops before you enroll is a pre-existing condition, one with signs or treatment before coverage began, and is excluded. Our guides to senior dogs and senior cats cover older pets.

How much does breed change the price?

Breed changes the price because some breeds are prone to expensive inherited problems. Large dogs and flat-faced breeds cost the most.

Breed (age 2)	Monthly cost	Source
French bulldog	$82 to $88	NerdWallet
German shepherd	$48 to $51	NerdWallet
Mixed-breed dog	$32 to $43	NerdWallet
Golden retriever	$59 to $115	Insurify, by coverage limit
Maine coon cat	$28 to $32	NerdWallet
Domestic shorthair cat	$19 to $20	NerdWallet

A French bulldog can cost more than double a mixed-breed dog of the same age. Our breed pages for the golden retriever and Maine coon explain the conditions behind the price.

How much does pet insurance cost by state?

Pet insurance costs more where vet care costs more, so the same dog can cost twice as much in one state as another. Lemonade puts it simply: medical costs in California are higher than in Tennessee.

Source	Cheapest	Most expensive
Forbes Advisor (dogs, $5,000 limit)	Oklahoma, $30 a month	Connecticut and Washington, $63 a month
NerdWallet (dogs / cats)	North Dakota, $36 / $25	Washington, D.C., $71 (dogs); Massachusetts and Washington, $43 (cats)
Insurify (dogs / cats)	Alabama, $32 / $15; Mississippi, $32 / $11	Alaska, $66 / $30; Massachusetts, $64 / $31

In Forbes Advisor’s data, Texas dogs average $41 a month and Florida dogs $45. Our state pages, such as California, show local prices and rules.

How do the deductible, reimbursement rate and limit change the price?

The three numbers you choose when you buy can move your premium as much as your pet’s age. Each trades a lower monthly price for more cost when you claim.

• Deductible: what you pay each policy year before the insurer pays anything. A higher deductible lowers the premium. In a NerdWallet example, raising it from $100 to $500 cut the price from about $61 to $38 a month.
• Reimbursement rate: the share of each covered bill the insurer pays back, usually 70%, 80% or 90%. A lower rate lowers the premium.
• Annual limit: the most the insurer pays in one policy year. In Forbes Advisor’s data, unlimited cover cost $87 a month for dogs against $56 with a $5,000 limit.

Choice	Cheaper premium	More expensive premium
Deductible	$500 or more	$100 or less
Reimbursement rate	70%	90%
Annual limit	$5,000	Unlimited

Picking the cheapest settings is not always the best value. A $5,000 limit can run out fast: CareCredit’s 2025 cost data puts foreign body surgery at $2,217 for dogs, plus $619 a night in hospital. Our deductible guide shows how to balance the two.

What else affects the cost?

Species, add-ons and discounts also move the price.

• Dog or cat: cats cost about half as much as dogs on NAPHIA’s numbers, because their vet bills tend to be lower.
• Wellness add-on: NAPHIA’s plans with embedded wellness cost $578 a year more for dogs and $424 more for cats. A wellness add-on pays set amounts toward vaccines, checkups and other routine care. Our wellness plans guide tests whether one pays for itself.
• Discounts: many insurers offer multi-pet and annual-payment discounts. Lemonade lists up to 10% for multiple pets and up to 5% for paying annually. It sells pet insurance in 43 states and D.C., for dogs and cats only.

Premiums also tend to rise over time. NAPHIA reports that US premium volume grew 19.7% in 2025, faster than the number of insured pets, because average premiums keep increasing.

Is a year of premiums more than a typical vet bill?

For a healthy pet in a quiet year, yes: you pay the premium and claim little. Insurance earns its cost in the year something goes wrong.

CareCredit’s 2025 cost data shows how quickly one problem adds up for a dog:

Vet cost (dogs, national average)	Price
Emergency exam fee	$135
X-rays, 2 to 3 views	$334
One night in hospital	$619
Foreign body surgery	$2,217
Bladder stone removal	$2,331

A single swallowed-object surgery with one night in hospital comes to about $2,836 before the exam and X-rays. That is more than three years of the average $836 dog premium. Our guide on whether pet insurance is worth it runs that comparison in detail.

Bottom line

Pet insurance averages about $70 a month for dogs and $36 a month for cats for a standard accident-and-illness plan, based on NAPHIA’s 2025 data. Young, mixed-breed pets in lower-cost states pay well under that, while senior pets and breeds like the French bulldog pay far more. Your deductible, reimbursement rate and annual limit are the levers you control. Get a quote for your own pet rather than relying on averages, and see our dog and cat cost guides for more detail.