Average Cost of Cat Insurance 2024

The cost of pet insurance for a cat starts from around £125 a year (£10 a month) for Lifetime cover. But prices vary depending on the age and breed of your cat, as well as factors like the level of cover and type of pet insurance you choose.

Contents

• Average cost of cat insurance in the UK
• Pet insurance cost for older cats
• Cat insurance costs by breed

Pet insurance can help you pay for vet bills in case your cat is injured in an accident or falls ill, needing treatment. But how much should you expect to pay for the best cat insurance?

Average Cost of Cat Insurance

The cost of cat insurance starts from around £10 a month, with female cats costing around 5% less to insure than males. According to our research, Lifetime cover is not only the "best" type of cover (since the vet limits renew each year), but it also offers good value for money.

We gathered dozens of cheap cat insurance quotes for different types of pet insurance—Time Limited, Maximum Benefit and Lifetime—for a young, healthy British Shorthair cat, taking the average of the cheapest 5 quotes with at least £2,000 of cover. Here's what we found:

On an annual basis, pet insurance costs start from around £125 a year for a young, healthy cat covered by a Lifetime policy. While Time Limited plans cost a touch less, they aren't good for covering long-term or recurring conditions since they restrict reimbursement to 12 months from the start of a condition (and this counts for both sides of the body). There are some "per condition" policies that can also provide similar protection to lifetime plans as they have a per condition limit per year, and this resets each each—these policies are like a mix of lifetime and maximum benefit cover and can provide good value as well.

How much is cat insurance?

Comparing Vet Fee Limits

Not surprisingly, the cost of car insurance rises with the level of vet fee cover. In particular, costs jump significantly for policies with more than £6,000 of cover as you can see below. We feel that plans offering £3,000 - £5,000 of cover are generally good value for money, but if you can afford the higher premiums then the top tier of cover will provide more protection in case of a serious (and expensive) issue.

Keep in mind the high price of vet treatment for serious issues. For example, a fractured femur in a cat can cost over £8,000.

Cat insurance costs jump over £6,000 of cover

Pet insurance cost for older cats

The cost of pet insurance will rise with your pet's age, usually doubling by age 9 or so, all else equal. As cats grow older they—like their owners—are more likely to have serious (and costly) health issues. The insurance companies know this and offset higher expected claims with larger premiums for that portion of a cat's life.

How much is pet insurance for older cats?

Two ways to reduce the cost of health insurance for older cats are opting for a Time Limited or Max Benefit plan instead of Lifetime cover (read about the differences here) or choosing a higher excess and/or paying a variable excess in addition to the fixed excess. Before choosing a higher excess, we urge you to read the Pros and Cons of a Higher Excess on Pet Insurance.

How Much is Cat Insurance by Breed?

Ever-popular moggies cost less to insure than most pedigree cats, with the exception of Burmese, as some breeds of cat cost more to insure than others—but there's less variation between breeds for cats than for dogs. For example, pet insurance costs around 50% more for a Bengal, Shphynx or Maine Coon compared to moggies.

To see how much more insurance for some breeds cost than others, we gathered sample quotes for a dozen popular cats in the UK. Prices reflect the average of the 5 cheapest quotes we found for policies with at least £2,000 of Lifetime cover for a one-year-old cat.

The cost of cat insurance varies marginally by breed

If you have yet to buy a cat and are just researching the costs of cat ownership you may want to keep in mind how insurance costs vary by breed, particularly if you are very budget conscious. Gender can even make a difference. Over one year of cat ownership, the difference in insurance premiums paid for a Lifetime plan can reach £125 or more between a male cat and female cat. Over a theoretical 12-year lifetime, the owner of a male cat could pay £1,250 more in insurance premiums than the owner of a female cat.

For more information on good pet insurance options at reasonable prices, see our article on Best Pet Insurance.

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