How pet insurance works in the US
Why read this
A week in a specialty hospital costs $8,000–15,000. Spinal surgery with an MRI costs $10,000–15,000. Chemotherapy starts at $5,000. Trupanion publishes examples of claims it paid on real customer bills: kidney failure $30,870, diabetes $17,055, inflammatory bowel disease $11,710, vomiting and diarrhea with a hospital stay $9,098. People buy pet insurance for days like these.
Yet only about 6% of dogs and a little over 2% of cats in the US are insured. The market is young, and premiums grow about 20% a year. It is more complicated than a quote page suggests. A dozen brands belong to two or three insurers. The price is a dozen factors multiplied together, and some of them rise every year by design. And the key clause in the policy excludes conditions the pet had before you bought it (“pre-existing”). Insurers apply it based on the entries in the vet record, not on a diagnosis.
This guide covers who sells the policy and who actually pays the claims. The rest is in separate guides: what is in a policy, how the price is set, why prices rise, pre-existing conditions, state laws, how to choose and how to read a rate filing.
The market in numbers
In 2024 US pet insurance premiums were about $4.7 billion, up 21.4% from the year before, according to the industry association NAPHIA. The number of insured pets grew 12.7%. Premiums grow faster than the number of pets, so the average premium per pet rises: by about 8% in 2024. In 2025 North America had 7.6 million insured pets (+8.5%) and $6.2 billion in premiums (+19.4%), so the premium per pet rose about 10%. In the US 5.99% of dogs and 2.29% of cats are insured.
The average US policy in 2024, according to NAPHIA:
- dog, accident and illness plan: $749 a year, or $62 a month, up 11% in a year;
- cat: $386 a year;
- dog, accident-only plan: $193 a year.
Dogs are 76% of insured pets and 86% of premiums.
The largest insurers by premium in 2025 were Trupanion ($1.22 billion) and Nationwide ($0.96 billion). Next came Independence Pet Group with its brands, Chubb (Healthy Paws), Lemonade and MetLife.
Three roles: brand, administrator, underwriter
On the website you see a brand: Pumpkin, Spot, Pets Best, Figo, ASPCA Pet Health Insurance, Embrace, Healthy Paws, Lemonade, Trupanion. But three parties stand behind the policy.
The underwriter (insurer). A licensed insurance company. It carries the risk, files rates with the state regulator and is the legal party to your contract. Its name is in the fine print at the bottom of the website and on the first page of the policy.
The program administrator (MGA, managing general agent). The company that owns the brand. It sells policies, takes and handles claims and runs the call center. It is usually an insurance agency, not an insurer.
The sales partner. A store, bank, car insurer or employer that sends customers. Costco sells Figo, Progressive sells Pets Best, State Farm sells Trupanion, Chewy sells Trupanion and Lemonade, and USAA and Geico sell Embrace. Aflac sells a Trupanion product under its own name.
Who stands behind whom in Florida, from documents filed with the regulator:
| Brand | Underwriter | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Pumpkin, Spot, ASPCA Pet Health Insurance and other brands of the same program | Independence American Insurance Company (IAIC); in some states and on older policies, United States Fire Insurance Company (Crum & Forster) | One rate program, V4, with a different base rate for each sales channel. Under the approved manual (filing 26-024273, from 1 October 2026) the monthly base rate is $112.95 for Pumpkin, $98.06 for Spot and $105.94 for the PTZ channel, which sells ASPCA. All other factors are the same |
| Pets Best | IAIC | Its own program and its own policy form. A 2023 amendment to its agreement with IAIC refers to a block of Pets Best policies written by APIC, Trupanion’s insurer. In Florida IAIC also renews an older closed block |
| Figo, PetPartners (AKC Pet Insurance) | IAIC | Separate programs of the same company |
| Trupanion, Trupanion for Chewy, Aflac Pet Insurance | American Pet Insurance Company (APIC), a Trupanion subsidiary; ZPIC in some states | Both the underwriter (APIC) and the administrator (Trupanion Managers USA) are Trupanion companies |
| Lemonade | Lemonade Insurance Company | Its own company, its own rates |
| Embrace | American Southern Home Insurance Company (American Modern group, Munich Re); American Modern Home in California | |
| Healthy Paws | ACE Property and Casualty (Chubb) | |
| MetLife Pet | Metropolitan General Insurance Company | |
| Nationwide | National Casualty; Veterinary Pet Insurance Company in California | The oldest player, second by premium |
| Fetch | AXIS Insurance Company |
Buyers rarely notice the sellers. Progressive sells Pets Best, Costco sells Figo, Sam’s Club sells Spot, PetSmart sells Healthy Paws, Petco and Walmart sell Nationwide, Chewy sells Trupanion and Lemonade, State Farm and Aflac sell Trupanion, and USAA and Geico sell Embrace. The AKC lends its name to PetPartners, and the ASPCA to ASPCA Pet Health Insurance. Clinics and breeders sell too: Trupanion and the AKC offer a policy on exam day or on the day the puppy goes home, with the first month free.
So there are three layers. At the top is the underwriter: it carries the risk and files rates with the regulator in its state. In the middle is the brand that administers the policy: it sells and services it. At the bottom is the partner that sends customers. One underwriter stands behind several brands. And one brand can have different underwriters in different states or on older policies.
Solid line: the underwriter carries the risk on the brand’s policies in every state we have checked (Florida and California). Dashed line: only in some states or on older policies. A state under an underwriter’s name is where our rate filings show it. Underwriters come from Florida and California filings; partners and other states from company websites and the press (see Sources).
The diagram as a table
| Underwriter | Brand | Sales partners |
|---|---|---|
| Independence American Insurance Company United States Fire Insurance Company | ASPCA | ASPCA (lends its name) |
| Independence American Insurance Company United States Fire Insurance Company | Pumpkin | — |
| Independence American Insurance Company United States Fire Insurance Company | Spot | Sam's Club |
| Independence American Insurance Company | Figo | Costco |
| Independence American Insurance Company | PetPartners | AKC (lends its name) |
| Independence American Insurance Company | Pets Best | Progressive |
| American Pet Insurance Company ZPIC Insurance Company | Trupanion | Chewy, State Farm, Aflac (under its own name) |
| American Modern Home Insurance Company American Southern Home Insurance Company | Embrace | USAA, Geico |
| Veterinary Pet Insurance Company National Casualty Company | Nationwide | Petco, Walmart |
| ACE Property and Casualty Insurance Company | Healthy Paws | PetSmart |
| Lemonade Insurance Company | Lemonade | Chewy |
| AXIS Insurance Company | Fetch | — |
| Metropolitan General Insurance Company | MetLife | — |
Why this matters:
- Switching brands and pre-existing conditions. Florida law counts as a renewal a policy renewed with the same insurer or an affiliated company. IAIC underwrites both Pumpkin and Spot. So if you move from Pumpkin to Spot, you can ask that conditions already covered do not become pre-existing. Between IAIC and Lemonade there is no such argument. This is not an automatic right: ask the insurer in writing before you switch. More in the guide to pre-existing conditions.
- A shared rate program. In Florida, Pumpkin and Spot raise prices in one filing and price with one formula. They differ in the base rate, the size of the increase for each channel and the discounts. Comparing Pumpkin and Spot on policy terms makes little sense: it is one policy form, PET-P-20000, with different covers.
- Each state has its own underwriter. One brand can have different underwriters in different states (APIC or ZPIC for Trupanion) and different policy terms. A comparison online that does not name the state is worth little. See the pages for Florida and California.
Sources
- NAPHIA, State of the Industry Report 2025 (2024 data) and 2026 (2025 data): naphia.org/industry-data.
- S&P Global Market Intelligence, April 2026: insurer premiums for 2025.
- Partnerships: Modern Retail (August 2025) on Petco, Walmart, PetSmart and Sam’s Club; Nationwide and Petco (2024); The Motley Fool on Costco and Figo; the websites of Progressive, State Farm, USAA, GEICO, Chewy and Aflac.
- Trupanion: 2025 annual report (10-K) and claim examples on the company website.
- Florida OIR, IRFS: IAIC 26-024273 (approved manual FL_20260724), IAIC 26-026451 (Pets Best).
- Florida Statutes §627.71545 (definition of renewal).
History
- Added a diagram of who is who: underwriters, brands and sales partners, built from our state data
- Corrected the yearly growth in premium per insured pet (about 8% in 2024 and 10% in 2025, from NAPHIA figures) and removed the claim that Trupanion is the only large player that is both underwriter and administrator
- First published