Pet Insurance by State

Pet owners in the United States are adding more four-legged family members to their households than ever before, and the adoption of pet insurance by these pet owners is growing rapidly as well. According to new data by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), nearly 57 percent of all U.S. households owned a pet by the end of 2016. However, some states are more apt to own pets than others, with Wyoming taking a surprising number one spot and Rhode Island coming in last.

Typically, pet ownership is lower in urban states and higher in rural states, but pet insurance adoption doesn’t necessarily follow that trend. In fact, pet owners in urban areas tend to get pet insurance more often than their rural neighbors, even though the cost can be quite a bit higher each month.

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

Here are the 10 states with the lowest percentage of pet owners:

• Rhode Island (45%)
• South Dakota (46%)
• New York (50%)
• New Jersey (47%)
• Maryland (49%)
• Illinois (49%)
• Massachusetts (49%)
• Connecticut (50%)
• Georgia (51%)
• New Hampshire (52%)

In terms of pet insurance, millennials are found to be the largest buying segment of pet insurance, which makes sense since they tend to live in more urban areas, are waiting longer to have children, and have time and disposable income to devote to pets. According to Superior Access, the typical pet insurance buyer lives in an urban setting, where medical care and pet services are more expensive.

The data proves this to be true, as we did sample quotes across a few top pet insurance providers (Healthy Paws, Pets Best and Figo) to see what monthly premiums would be in various states. For each state, we broke down the cost by city by choosing one zip code per city and doing a sample quote through their quote engine. For a control, we used a three-year-old male dog, mixed breed and medium size.

Here is a look at all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and the average monthly premium for five cities in each location. Remember that these quotes are to give you a ballpark idea, and there are a lot of variables that go into generating a quote, including pet breed, age, size, zip code and other factors like what type of policy you choose and what add-ons you select. We chose the middle-of-the-road policy with no add-ons for the sake of this exercise.

As you can see, the larger cities definitely face a higher premium, with Manhattan topping the list at a whopping $65.79 per month, all the way down to Tallahassee, Florida, our lowest premium, at $17.59 per month.

The least expensive areas for pet insurance are Oregon and Florida, with cities in the bottom ten in both states.

In terms of pet insurance policy buying, California tops every state by far, with 362,727policies ($), followed by New York (179,133), Florida (116,855), New Jersey (104,884), Texas (93,529), according to data from the North American Pet Health Insurance Association. State of the Industry Report 2018.

Each state is different and buying a pet insurance policy is an easy way to gain peace of mind, protect your savings, and make sure you don’t have to choose between your pet and finances. While pet insurance doesn’t cover everything, it typically covers enough to help out in case of emergency accident or illness. Click on each state to see more specifics on coverage.