Pet insurance statistics Australia 2026: household spending and uptake

Published 20 July 2026

Average spend, dogs: $145; Average annual pet insurance spend per dog-owning household, to March 2025
Dog owners insured: 24%; Share of dog owners with insurance in 2025, vs 14% of cat owners
Cost as a reason: 50%; Uninsured dog owners citing cost as a reason, vs 49% of cat owners
Vet services price index: +62%; ABS vet services price index, Mar 2015 to Mar 2026 (8-city weighted avg)

Average insurance cost in Australia in 2026: how much households spend on premiumsA look across home, car, health, contents and pet insurance together, and how total premium spending compares with other household bills.

How much have insurance premiums increased in Australia?How premiums across major insurance categories have moved in recent years, and what's been driving the increases.

Average health insurance cost in Australia in 2026Combined hospital and extras cover for a single person had a mean listed premium of $3,632 a year, or $303 a month, in 2026. The equivalent mean listed premiums were $7,154 a year, or $596 a month, fo…

Section 01 · What the national data measures

How much do Australian households spend on pet insurance?

Average annual pet insurance spending was $145 per dog-owning household and $70 per cat-owning household in the year to March 2025. These are the most recent public national figures identified, from Animal Medicines Australia's Pets in Australia 2025, a national industry survey. Animal Medicines Australia is the peak body representing Australia's animal health industry.

This is the only public national estimate identified for this article. No public national dataset was found that breaks pet insurance premiums down by breed, age, city or cover level. Insurers price policies individually, and this detail is not captured in publicly available insurance-industry statistics.

These are household-spending averages, not policy premiums, and they include households that reported no insurance spending at all. An average covering insured households only would likely be higher, but the published data does not allow that difference to be measured directly.

Average spend, dogs: $145; per dog-owning household, year to March 2025; Averaged across all dog-owning households, including those without a current policy; a spending measure, not a premium.
Average spend, cats: $70; per cat-owning household, year to March 2025; Average across all cat-owning households, including uninsured homes. Cat owners reported lower insurance uptake than dog
Total national spend: $1.0bn; pet insurance category, year to March 2025; Estimated national spend in the survey's pet-insurance category, alongside about $1.9bn on veterinary services.

Pet insurance accounted for about 5% of total pet spending

Australians spent an estimated $21.3 billion on their pets in the year to March 2025. Pet insurance accounted for about $1.0 billion of that total, equivalent to approximately 5%.

Food: $9.8 billion
Veterinary services: $1.9 billion
Products and accessories: $1.4 billion
Pet insurance: $1.0 billion

A dog-owning household reported average annual pet spending of approximately $2,520, while a cat-owning household reported approximately $1,656. Pet insurance represented one component of these totals, with most dog and cat owners reporting that they did not have insurance.

Total pet spending: $21.3bn; All pets, year to March 2025
Pet insurance: $1.0bn; About 5% of total pet spending
Veterinary services: $1.9bn; Estimated national spending, year to March 2025

Animal Medicines Australia, Pets in Australia 2025. The approximately 5% share was calculated from the published category totals: $1.0 billion divided by $21.3 billion.

Section 02 · Dogs, cats and everything else

How does pet insurance spending compare for dogs and cats?

Dog-owning households reported roughly twice the average insurance spending of cat-owning households: $145 compared with $70. Part of that difference is likely explained by participation: 24% of dog owners reported holding insurance, compared with 14% of cat owners.

The survey does not publish the cross-tabulation needed to separate how much of the difference comes from participation and how much comes from spending among insured households. Because the household average blends both effects, the comparison below is a spending comparison, not a like-for-like premium comparison.

Bar chart: average annual pet insurance spend per dog- and cat-owning household, with an insured-share view — Average annual household spend and reported insurance participation, year to March 2025. Dog-owning households spent roughly twice what cat-owning households spent, and dog owners reported holding a policy at about 1.7 times the rate cat owners did. The spending difference likely reflects both participation and spending among insured households, but the published tables do not cross-tab the two measures or quantify each factor's contribution. Spend figures are averages across all owner households; the dog expenditure sample included 1,188 households and the cat expenditure sample included 779 households. Participation figures are the reported share of dog and cat owners with insurance.

The national survey reports insurance spending only for dogs and cats. It does not publish insurance-spending figures for birds, fish, reptiles or small mammals, so it cannot support a national cost estimate for those pet types.

Section 03 · Cover types and their limits

What types of pet insurance are available in Australia?

ASIC's Moneysmart groups stand-alone pet insurance into three broad categories: accident-only, accident and illness, and comprehensive cover. Some home and contents policies also offer pet cover as an optional extra. These are general consumer categories rather than a standardised classification used by every insurer.

The two pet insurance products reviewed for this article offered reimbursement rates of 70%, 80% or 90%, with annual benefit limits ranging from $10,000 to $30,000, depending on the cover selected. These figures are product examples, not national averages.

The table below sets out the Moneysmart categories alongside figures from the two Australian pet insurance products reviewed for this article. It is not a market survey, and no premiums are quoted.

Based on publicly available product information from two Australian pet insurance providers, reviewed 15 July 2026. Illustrative ranges only, not a market-wide average. This is a general guide, not a market-wide average. Cover, annual limits, reimbursement rates, excesses, exclusions and optional benefits vary between products and insurers. Premiums may also vary according to the pet and its location. Current terms are set out in each insurer's Product Disclosure Statement.
Pet insurance cover categories in Australia, with example figures
Cover type	General description	What this looks like in practice
Accident-only	Vet costs from specified accidental injuries only; excludes illness	Neither product reviewed offered stand-alone accident-only cover; both included illness cover as standard
Accident and illness	Accidental injury plus eligible illnesses, subject to limits and exclusions	Reimbursement rates of 70%, 80% or 90%; annual benefit limits between $10,000 and $30,000; excess options between $0 and $500, depending on the tier chosen
Comprehensive	Accidents, illness, preventative care and some routine veterinary checks, such as vaccinations and worming	Optional add-ons for dental care and specialised therapies, typically capped around $2,000 a year; some products also offer a separate, non-insurance benefit for routine items like vaccinations

Source · ASIC Moneysmart, Pet insurance, updated 18 June 2026, and publicly available pet insurance product information reviewed 15 July 2026; see References

Section 04 · The pricing levers

How pet insurance costs vary by breed, age and cover level

Pet insurance premiums can vary according to the pet's species, breed and age, as well as the annual benefit limit, reimbursement rate, excess and optional benefits selected. Available sources identify these factors but do not quantify the average dollar effect of each one.

Factors that can influence a premium

Government guidance and the product examples reviewed for this article point to several relevant factors, from reimbursement rates as low as 70% and as high as 90%, to annual benefit limits as high as $30,000. The size of each effect varies between products and insurers:

Species and breed: ASIC Moneysmart states that some breeds have health risks or characteristics that can make insurance more expensive or unavailable. Product terms and pricing may also differ between dogs and cats.
Age: Insurers may charge different premiums according to a pet's age, and some policies restrict new cover or particular benefits beyond a specified age.
Annual benefit limit: Some policies allow customers to choose from several annual benefit limits, which can affect the premium.
Reimbursement percentage: the share of an eligible bill the insurer pays back. Some policies offer a choice of 70%, 80% or 90%. This article does not quantify the dollar effect of each option, since no standardised quotes were collected for comparison.
Excess: some policies also let customers choose an annual excess, which can affect the premium too.
Cover level and add-ons: some policies offer optional dental, specialised-therapy or routine-care benefits on top of base accident-and-illness cover. Depending on the product, routine-care benefits may be structured as a separate non-insurance benefit rather than part of the policy.

Several of these settings are selected by the policyholder rather than determined by the pet. Owners of pets with the same breed and age may therefore pay different premiums if they select different benefit limits, reimbursement rates, excesses or optional benefits. An average premium based only on breed or age would not account for these policy differences.

Source: ASIC Moneysmart, Pet insurance, updated 18 June 2026, and publicly available product information from the two pet insurance products reviewed for this article.

Section 05 · Why so many go without

Why do Australian pet owners go without pet insurance?

Around half of uninsured dog and cat owners cited cost as a reason for going without cover, while around four in ten cited a lack of perceived value. These were the two most common reasons reported. Because respondents could choose more than one reason, this does not show what share cited at least one of the two.

Horizontal grouped bar chart of reasons uninsured dog and cat owners give for not having pet insurance — Reasons given by uninsured dog and cat owners, year to March 2025. Owners could give more than one reason. Cost was the most common reason for both dog and cat owners. Half of uninsured dog owners cited cost, compared with 49% of uninsured cat owners. Cat owners were more likely than dog owners to say they did not see the value in pet insurance, at 44% compared with 37%. Because owners could select more than one reason, the percentages add to more than 100%. Based on 903 uninsured dog owners and 667 uninsured cat owners.

The same survey reported that 24% of dog owners and 14% of cat owners had insurance. However, it does not establish how the reasons for remaining uninsured affected participation or household spending.

The survey also recorded other cost-related behaviours. About 14% of dog owners and 18% of cat owners reported at least one of the following healthcare-related actions to reduce spending:

Making check-ups or vaccinations less frequent
Reducing or stopping a pet's medication
Giving a pet medication intended for humans

12% of pet owners reported needing financial assistance for veterinary care in the previous 12 months.

Source: Animal Medicines Australia, Pets in Australia 2025. The cost-related healthcare figures were based on 1,188 dog owners and 779 cat owners. The financial-assistance figure was based on 1,848 current pet owners.

Why premiums differ between pets and policies

Lifetime pet insurance premiums can run into the thousands of dollars, government guidance notes. That guidance also points to waiting periods and pre-existing-condition exclusions as factors that affect when and whether treatment is covered.

For those who do insure, premiums differ for the reasons set out in Section 4: species, breed and age on the pet's side, and benefit limit, reimbursement percentage, excess and add-ons on the policy side.

Section 06 · The cost of the bills behind the cover

How have veterinary prices and pet insurance participation changed?

The ABS price index for veterinary and other pet services, based on the weighted average of the eight capital cities, rose by approximately 62% between the March quarters of 2015 and 2026. On an annual-average basis, the index climbed from about 63 in 2015 to about 99 in 2025.

This tracks the cost of veterinary care, not the cost of pet insurance. No continuous official pet insurance premium series was identified for this article, so a trend line for the price of cover cannot be presented.

Line chart of the ABS veterinary and other pet services price index, 2015 to March quarter 2026 — ABS Consumer Price Index, annual average of the quarterly series, eight-capital-cities weighted average. The index rose every year on an annual-average basis. Annual increases were smaller in the years to 2020, ranging from about 1.6 to 2.5 points a year. They were larger from 2021 to 2023, reaching 6.4 points in 2023, then eased to 5.5 points in 2024 and 4.7 points in 2025. Because index movements are unaffected by the choice of reference base, the 62% rise over the period is unchanged by the ABS re-referencing of the series. The final point represents the March quarter of 2026 rather than a full-year average. The reference base is the September quarter of 2025 = 100. Annual averages and the 62% increase were calculated from the published quarterly index values.

Veterinary price inflation is not pet insurance inflation

The ABS index measures changes in the price of veterinary and other pet services, not pet insurance premiums. The 62% increase therefore does not show that pet insurance premiums rose by the same amount. No continuous official pet insurance premium series was identified for this article.

Can pet insurance participation be compared over time?

The survey reports do not use a consistent pet insurance spending or premium measure from year to year. Depending on the survey year, published measures cover:

All owners
Insured owners only
Household expenditure rather than a policy premium

The 2025 report recalculates overall 2022 pet expenditure using the same outlier-adjustment method used in 2025, but does not present a revised 2022 pet insurance category total. For that reason, the available figures cannot support a consistent trend in pet insurance premiums or category spending.

One measure appears broadly comparable across the two survey waves: reported insurance participation, subject to the source limitation below.

Reported insurance participation in 2022 and 2025

The reported share of dog owners with insurance was 17% in 2022 and 24% in 2025. For cat owners, the reported shares were 12% and 14%.

The 2025 estimate was seven percentage points higher for dogs and two percentage points higher for cats. The source does not report whether these differences are statistically significant, so the figures should be treated as comparisons between survey point estimates rather than evidence of a continuing trend.

Grouped bar chart of reported pet insurance participation among dog and cat owners, 2022 vs 2025 — Percentage of dog and cat owners reporting insurance, Animal Medicines Australia surveys. The reported 2025 estimate was seven percentage points higher for dogs and two percentage points higher for cats than in 2022. Even at the higher 2025 figure, roughly three in four dog owners and six in seven cat owners reported not having insurance. Source limitation: the narrative in the 2022 report states that 12% of cat owners had insurance, while a table on the same page reports 21%. The underlying insured-cat sample was 72 respondents out of 649 cat owners, equivalent to approximately 11%. This article therefore uses the narrative figure of 12% and treats the 21% table entry as an apparent source error. The comparison with 2025 was calculated from the reported point estimates and is not presented as a time series by Animal Medicines Australia.

The national A$145 and A$70 averages include households without a current policy. Selecting a pet type shows the reported average, the reported share of owners with insurance, and an illustrative adjusted figure based on disclosed assumptions. This is a calculation, not a survey result.

Section 07

How the reported average changes when uninsured households are excluded

Reported average$145Across all owner households
Owners reporting insurance24%Reported share with a policy
No current policy76%Assumed A$0 in this illustration
Illustrative adjusted figure$604Household average ÷ reported insured share; not a premium or quote

This calculation is not a premium or a quote. It assumes that the annual-spending and insurance-participation figures line up, and that households without a current policy contributed no insurance spending. The source does not publish the cross-tab needed to verify either assumption.

About the data

The Animal Medicines Australia spending figures are survey estimates for the year to March 2025. Average household spending includes owners who reported spending nothing in a category.

Annual-average values for the ABS veterinary and other pet services price index were calculated as the arithmetic mean of the four quarterly index values for each calendar year. The approximately 62% increase was calculated from the change in the index from 62.67 in the March quarter of 2015 to 101.56 in the March quarter of 2026.

No standardised live premium quotes were collected for this article. The product features shown are illustrative examples from two Australian pet insurance providers. Both products are issued by PetSure (Australia) Pty Ltd, so they are not independent examples or representative of the wider market.

References

Animal Medicines Australia, Pets in Australia: A national survey of pets and people 2025 · animalmedicinesaustralia.org.au
Animal Medicines Australia, Pets in Australia: A national survey of pets and people 2022 · animalmedicinesaustralia.org.au
ASIC Moneysmart, Pet insurance · moneysmart.gov.au
ABS, Consumer Price Index, Australia, March 2026 · Australian Bureau of Statistics
HCF, HCF Happy Tails Cover pet insurance · hcf.com.au
Bow Wow Meow Pet Insurance, Nose-to-Tail Cover · bowwowinsurance.com.au