Is pet insurance worth it? For many Australians, the answer is no

When Bronwen Sciortino adopted her two kittens, Madja and Mason, she decided against pet insurance.

The Perth-based author had taken out insurance for her previous cat, Stella, but when it came to funding care of the family’s new 11-week-old kittens, the cost of premiums no longer added up.

“I got thousands of dollars [in claims] back from the insurer for Stella, but nowhere near as much as I paid out to them over the years I had insurance,” she says.

“Pet insurance doesn’t pay for all the expenses. It only pays for 75 per cent to 80 per cent of each bill, and it only covers certain conditions.”

Instead, Sciortino decided to self-insure Madja and Mason by funnelling a certain amount of money each fortnight into a high-interest account. Four years later, and the kittens’ account has amassed $14,000.

“Doing it this way, we have control over what is and isn’t covered and whether to dip into the fund to pay for routine care,” she says.

It’s still not considered compulsory, like home or car insurance, but it’s definitely worth weighing up.

CHOICE insurance expert Jodi Bird

The key, according to Sciortino, is to set up automatic payments into an account that earns interest and is not easy to access.

“I don’t even think about touching the money, it’s in an account I don’t go into every day.”

The high cost of premiums

There is no doubt that pet insurance premiums can be high. A December survey by comparison site Finder revealed that Australians are spending an average of $134 per month on pet insurance.

According to Animal Medicines Australia’s most recent survey, Pets in Australia, some 86 per cent of cat owners and 76 per cent of dog owners don’t have pet insurance, with the high cost of premiums cited as the main reason.

In fact, some 50 per cent of dog owners without pet insurance pointed to cost as the central reason for eschewing insurance (up from 43 per cent in 2022), compared with 49 per cent of cat owners (up from 44 per cent in 2022).

This is despite high levels of pet ownership in Australia, with 73 per cent of households now owning at least one pet.

A lack of perceived value for money is part of the problem, the survey found, with a sharp rise in cat owners questioning the value of pet insurance – up from 33 per cent in 2022 to 44 per cent in 2025. Nevertheless, CHOICE insurance expert Jodi Bird says that “pet insurance can be a viable option these days”.

“It’s still not considered compulsory, like home or car insurance, but it’s definitely worth weighing up against your ability to cover the cost of your vet bills.”

Changing landscape

In 2019, CHOICE gave the entire pet insurance sector a “Shonky Award”, largely because of the then-common “pre-condition trap” which meant that if your pet had a pre-existing condition it was difficult to switch insurers.

Since then the landscape has shifted. Several new insurers have entered the Australian market with more generous provisions, including a relaxation of the pre-condition clause, which forced the incumbent underwriters to follow suit.

When CHOICE started comparing pet insurance a little over 10 years ago, Bird says, there were only two underwriters in the market, but now there’s about six – although one brand, PetSure, still dominates.

“Obviously, competition drives better products for consumers,” Bird says.

Bird advises pet owners to enter pet ownership with an awareness of how much their breed is likely to cost them, with flat-faced dogs, such as pugs or French bulldogs, likely to incur higher vet costs than labradors or cavoodles.

Some pet owners may also be surprised to learn that most insurers will not cover pets once they reach nine years old and premiums will rise as dogs and cats age.

Pet owners may wish to opt for a hybrid insurance model, Bird says, of taking out insurance while the pet is younger, and concurrently saving up a cash fund for their ongoing treatment so you can cancel the insurance when the pet’s premiums rise.

“It’s going to be very difficult to switch pet insurers as your pet ages,” Bird says. In any case, think about the cost of your pet and how you will pay for its care long before you bring it home.

“Pet insurance can be vital when you don’t have that financial buffer to take care of vet bills,” he says.

“But it’s best that people have a look at [their finances] long before they’ve bought their pet, to have a look at what type of pet they may want, how much it’s going to cost and what type of care it may need.”

• Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.

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