Pet insurance is becoming more common in the United States, with the North American Pet Health Insurance Association reporting a 17.1% growth in the total number of pets that were insured in 2023, for a total of more than 5.6 million insured animals.
Overall, 14.8% of dogs in the U.S. and 26.2% of cats were insured in 2023. Dogs comprise the majority of insured pets, however, accounting for 78.6% of covered animals. Since 2020, the number of insured pets in the U.S. has grown by an average of 22.6% each year.
There are three standard varieties of pet insurance policies:
- Accident and illness plans;
- Accident-only plans; and
- Routine wellness plans
Combination accident and illness pet insurance plans are the most popular. The combined plans usually cover injury and sickness (broken bones, cancer, etc.), while accident-only plans only cover accident-related issues. Wellness plans can usually be included as an add-on to these policies.
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Brittney Meredith-Miller
Brittney Meredith-Miller is assistant editor of PropertyCasualty360.com. She can be reached at [email protected].
