The short version
In 2025, the average accident and illness premium in the United States was $836 a year for a dog, about $70 a month, and $435 a year for a cat, about $36 a month. Accident-only plans, which cover injuries and not illnesses, averaged $190 a year for dogs and $112 for cats. Plans with wellness care built in averaged $1,414 for dogs and $859 for cats. Every monthly figure on this page is the published annual average divided by twelve.
An average blends every breed, age, state, and settings choice in the country into one number, so your own pet will sit above or below it, sometimes far from it. What the average is good for is a reference point: a quote that lands near it is ordinary, and a quote that lands nowhere near it has a reason worth finding. The rest of this guide is about reading the number properly.
One trend matters before any of the detail. Premiums rose faster in 2025 than in any of the previous four years in the table: the accident and illness average went up 11.5 percent for dogs and 12.6 percent for cats in a single year. Whatever a policy costs at enrollment, budgeting for it to cost more at renewal is the realistic assumption.
The 2025 averages
NAPHIA tracks three product types. Accident and illness is the mainstream product: injuries plus illnesses such as cancer, infections, and digestive problems. Accident only covers injuries alone. The third category, insurance with embedded wellness, is comprehensive plans that build routine care such as vaccinations, screening, and dental care into the policy itself. The 2025 United States averages:
| Plan type | Dogs, per year | Dogs, per month | Cats, per year | Cats, per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accident and illness | $836 | about $70 | $435 | about $36 |
| Accident only | $190 | about $16 | $112 | about $9 |
| With wellness built in | $1,414 | about $118 | $859 | about $72 |
Source: NAPHIA, State of the Industry Report 2026, Section 4 (2025 calendar year data). Monthly figures are the annual averages divided by twelve.
Two cautions belong with this table. First, the three rows are three different products, not three prices for the same product. An accident-only quote should be judged against the accident-only row, because it leaves illness, the larger half of most pets' lifetime vet bills, with you. Our guide to what pet insurance covers walks the boundary line by line. Second, the wellness row is not the price of adding a wellness rider to the first row, and subtracting the two does not give you a rider price. It is the average premium of a different kind of policy, bought by a different mix of owners.
Five years of averages
One year of averages is a snapshot. Five years show the direction, and the direction is not the same for every product:
| Year | Dogs, accident and illness | Cats, accident and illness | Dogs, accident only | Cats, accident only |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $625 | $370 | $192 | $121 |
| 2022 | $640 | $387 | $201 | $122 |
| 2023 | $675 | $383 | $204 | $116 |
| 2024 | $749 | $386 | $193 | $110 |
| 2025 | $836 | $435 | $190 | $112 |
Source: NAPHIA, State of the Industry Report 2026, Section 4, United States annual averages.
Read as a trend, the dog accident and illness average has risen about 34 percent in five years, from $625 to $836, and the cat average about 18 percent, from $370 to $435. Accident-only averages barely moved over the same period, and the dog accident-only average is lower than it was in 2023. NAPHIA itself notes that the industry's premium volume is growing faster than its count of insured pets because the average premium keeps rising: United States premium volume reached about $5.7 billion in 2025, up 19.7 percent, while the number of insured pets rose 9.0 percent to about 6.98 million.
What an average hides
An industry average is honest arithmetic over a very mixed pool. Four blends sit inside it, and each one is a reason your own quote can legitimately land far away:
- Every age at once. Puppies and kittens enrolled cheaply and senior pets enrolled at senior prices are in the same pool. Premiums rise as a pet ages, so a young pet normally starts below the average and an older pet sits above it. Our cost guide explains how age pricing works.
- Every breed at once. A Chihuahua and a French Bulldog average together, although their expected vet bills are nothing alike. Breed is one of the strongest pricing inputs there is, which is why this site prices risk breed by breed in its breed guides instead of pretending one figure fits all dogs.
- Every state at once. Vet costs differ sharply by area, and insured pets are not spread evenly: California alone holds 18.1 percent of insured pets in the United States, and Illinois 3.3 percent. A national average overweights high-cost states relative to a pet living somewhere cheaper.
- Every settings choice at once. These averages are premiums on policies people actually hold, at the deductibles, annual limits, and reimbursement percentages those owners chose, with any discounts they qualified for already applied. Change the settings and the same pet reprices, which is the subject of our discounts guide and the lever you control most directly.
There is also a quieter effect worth knowing: an average can move because the pool changed, not because any individual price did. If more owners enroll senior pets, the average rises even if every single premium stays put. Read the year-to-year changes in the five-year table as movement in the market, not as a forecast of your own renewal letter.
How to use these numbers
As a sanity check on a quote. If a quote for an accident and illness plan lands near $836 a year for a dog or $435 for a cat, it is priced like the middle of the market. If it lands far above, find the driver before assuming it is overpriced: age, breed, ZIP code, and rich settings each explain large gaps, and each is visible in the quote if you ask. If it lands far below, check what is missing: a low annual limit, a low reimbursement percentage, or exclusions doing the work of the low price.
As a budget starting point, with the trend attached. For planning purposes, the average is a reasonable first-year placeholder for a typical pet on a typical plan. The five-year table is the correction to apply after that: accident and illness averages have compounded at roughly 6 to 8 percent a year across the period, with 2025 much faster. A budget that assumes the first premium repeats unchanged will understate the cost every year after the first.
Never as a comparison between carriers. The average cannot tell you whether one insurer is cheaper than another for your pet, because it is not built from matched pets or matched settings. Carrier comparison only means something pet by pet, at fixed settings, which is the method in how to compare plans. The reimbursement calculator then shows what any given premium buys you back on a real bill.
Why averages, not quote tables
Readers reasonably ask why this page does not simply show each carrier's price for a standard pet. We tried the direct route first. In November 2026 we worked the quote forms of the twelve carriers in our discounts guide, for standard sample pets, in two cities. All twelve required contact details before any price appeared: ten required an email address before showing a figure, one required a street address, and one carrier's form was not working at all. We do not enter email addresses, phone numbers, or street addresses to harvest prices, and we do not publish numbers we cannot show the working for, so no carrier quote table exists on this site.
The averages above are the strongest published alternative. NAPHIA's report is compiled by Willis Towers Watson, an independent firm, from insurer data estimated to represent about 99 percent of written pet health insurance premium in the United States and Canada. It is the same source the veterinary publisher PetMD uses for cost figures. We refresh this page when each annual edition appears, and the figures carry their data year wherever they are used.
What would change our approach is simple: a carrier publishing prices where anyone can see them without handing over contact details. A price that can be seen can be quoted with its settings, its city, and its date attached, checked again later, and corrected in the open. The day that is possible at scale, this page gains a quote table next to the averages.
Questions owners ask about average cost
What does pet insurance cost per month?
On the industry's own averages for 2025, an accident and illness plan cost about $70 a month for a dog and about $36 a month for a cat. Those monthly figures are the published annual averages, $836 and $435, divided by twelve. Insurers bill monthly or annually, and monthly billing can carry small installment fees, so a monthly invoice can differ slightly from a clean twelfth of the annual figure.
Why is my quote higher than the average?
Because the average blends puppies with seniors, every breed with every other, high-cost states with low-cost ones, and every settings choice owners have made. A senior French Bulldog in an expensive city, on a low deductible and a high reimbursement percentage, will sit far above it. A young mixed breed in a lower-cost area, on leaner settings, will sit below it. Neither quote is wrong. The average describes the pool, not your pet.
Are pet insurance premiums still rising?
Yes, and 2025 was the fastest year in the five-year table. The accident and illness average rose 11.5 percent for dogs and 12.6 percent for cats in 2025, after rises of 11.0 and 0.9 percent in 2024. NAPHIA notes that the industry's premium volume is growing faster than its insured pet count because average premiums keep rising. Budget for renewal increases rather than expecting the enrollment price to hold.
Does the average include wellness coverage?
No. NAPHIA tracks plans with wellness built in as a separate category, and those averaged $1,414 a year for dogs and $859 for cats in 2025. Do not judge a wellness-inclusive quote against the accident and illness average, and do not read the gap between the two rows as the price of a wellness add-on. They are averages of two different products bought by different mixes of owners.
How many pets are insured in the United States?
About 6.98 million at the end of 2025: 5.23 million dogs and 1.75 million cats, up 9.0 percent on the year. Against roughly 163.6 million owned dogs and cats, that is a penetration rate of about 4.27 percent, 5.99 percent for dogs and 2.29 percent for cats. Most American pets are still uninsured, which is worth remembering when any single owner's experience is presented as typical.
Sources and further reading
- NAPHIA, State of the Industry Report 2026 (highlights), published June 21, 2026, for every premium figure on this page (Section 4, United States table), the five-year series, the 2025 premium volume of about $5.7 billion and insured pet counts (Sections 2 and 3), the state distribution of insured pets (Section 5), and the penetration rates (highlights, citing the American Veterinary Medical Association's 2025 pet owner survey for the owned-pet population).
- NAPHIA, State of the Industry Report 2025 (highlights), the prior edition, used to cross-check the 2024 column of the five-year table.
Sources checked on November 10, 2026. NAPHIA is the pet insurance industry's trade association. Its report is compiled by Willis Towers Watson from member and public data, with actuarial inferences where needed, and is estimated to cover about 99 percent of written pet health insurance premium in the United States and Canada. Averages describe the market in their data year. They are not quotes, and no average on this page is a price any specific pet can be insured at.