US pet insurance premiums are still rising into 2026, and the trend is steeper than general inflation. The most recent hard data, NAPHIA's State of the Industry series, puts the average accident-and-illness premium at $749.29 a year for dogs and $386.47 a year for cats in 2024, up from $675.61 for dogs the year before, a roughly 11% one-year increase [NAPHIA State of the Industry, Average Premiums, 2024]. A 2026 shopper should plan around continued upward pressure, not a plateau, and the cited reason is the cost of the care being insured, not the carriers padding margin.
What the data shows
The premium series is the cleanest signal, and it points one direction. NAPHIA's US dog accident-and-illness average ran $640.04 in 2022, $675.61 in 2023, and $749.29 in 2024; the cat average moved from $387.01 to $383.30 to $386.47 over the same period [NAPHIA State of the Industry, Average Premiums, 2024] [NAPHIA: Pet Health Insurance Industry Continued Exceptional Growth Rate In 2023, 2024-04]. The dog line is the one moving: about $109 added over two years, roughly 17% cumulative, while cat premiums were essentially flat. A 2026 dog shopper should anchor expectations above the $749 mark, not at it, because the 2024 figure is already more than a year old and the slope has been positive every year.
The accident-only tier is the cheaper alternative the data also tracks, and it is far lower: $193.29 a year for dogs and $110.03 for cats in 2024 [NAPHIA State of the Industry, Average Premiums, 2024]. That gap, roughly $556 a year between accident-only and accident-and-illness for a dog, is the single largest lever a price-pressed 2026 buyer has, and it matters more to the monthly cost than shopping carriers does.
The spending side corroborates the pressure. AVMA's owner survey reported the average cost of the last veterinary visit at $200 in 2025, up from $147 in 2024, and total annual pet spending of roughly $1,700 in 2025, about $200 more than the prior two years [AVMA: Evolving pet owner economics: What data reveal for veterinary teams, 2025]. Premiums track the cost of the bills they reimburse, so a rising visit cost is a leading indicator that the 2025 and 2026 premium prints will continue the dog-line trend rather than break it.
NAPHIA dog accident-and-illness average: $640.04 (2022) to $675.61 (2023, +5.6%) to $749.29 (2024, +10.9%) [NAPHIA State of the Industry, Average Premiums, 2024]. A buyer quoting the 2024 figure as their 2026 number is using stale data; the two-year compound rate has been roughly 8% a year. The cat line, by contrast, sat in a $383 to $387 band across all three years, so a 2026 cat shopper can reasonably treat the $386.47 figure as still representative while a dog shopper should not.
What is driving the change
The trend is not carrier opportunism; it is the arithmetic of the product. A premium is priced to the expected cost of the claims it pays, so when veterinary procedure costs rise, the premium has to follow or the book loses money. The cited cost ranges are large and have not fallen: a cruciate-ligament repair averages $3,525 and reaches $6,417 by region, and a cancer course runs $3,000 to $10,000 or more over several months [CareCredit: How Much Does CCL (ACL) Surgery for Dogs Cost?, 2025] [CareCredit: How Much Does Chemotherapy Cost for Dogs and Cats?, 2025]. When the underlying bill that triggers a claim costs more, every renewal on a book exposed to that bill reprices upward.
A second driver is book aging. As a carrier's enrolled pets get older, claims frequency and severity rise with them, so even a carrier holding its rate schedule flat sees average paid claims climb as the book matures, and the renewal premium rises to match. The dog line moving while the cat line stays flat is consistent with this: dogs carry the higher-cost orthopedic and large-breed claim profile, so dog books reprice harder. The full mechanism, vet-cost inflation, claims frequency, and aging, is the subject of why pet insurance premiums rise, and the comparison against general inflation is on pet insurance vs inflation.
What is not driving it, on the cited evidence, is a coverage upgrade the buyer is getting in return. Consumer Reports' survey of 3,583 policyholders found 44% received full reimbursement at their policy level after the copay on their most recent claims, with a median premium among CR members of $34.50 a month [Brian Vines, Consumer Reports Pet Insurance Buying Guide, 2026]. The price is rising while the payout experience has not visibly improved, which is the part of the trend a shopper should price in skeptically.
What it means for you
For a 2026 dog shopper, the actionable read is: do not quote the $749 figure as your number, and do not assume next year is cheaper. The two-year trend is roughly 8% a year and the leading cost indicators are still up, so budget above the 2024 print and treat any quote near the accident-only $193 tier as a different, thinner product, not a deal on the same coverage [NAPHIA State of the Industry, Average Premiums, 2024]. For a 2026 cat shopper, the flat three-year cat line means the urgency is lower; the $386 figure is still a reasonable planning anchor.
The trend also changes the enrollment-timing calculus. Because premiums rise with both market repricing and the pet's own age, the cheapest year to start a policy is almost always the current one for a young, asymptomatic pet, and waiting a year both raises the market rate and ages the pet into a higher band. That is a cost argument, not a coverage one, and it is the rare case where the rising-cost trend itself is the reason not to delay.
What the trend does not tell you is which provider to buy, because the average hides the structure that decides whether a policy pays out: annual versus per-condition deductible, the annual cap, the exam-fee carve-out, the orthopedic waiting period. A rising average makes those terms matter more, not less, because you are paying more for the same reimbursement risk. Use the guides hub for the term-by-term framework, and see the year-by-year series on average pet insurance premium by year. The full tracking desk is at /news/ and the review method is at /methodology/. FurVerdict is an independent editorial site and is not a licensed insurance agent; verify current terms with the provider before purchasing.