Best pet insurance for cats

Most of the big vet bills cat owners face come from a short list: a blocked bladder, dental disease, kidney disease, an overactive thyroid, diabetes, and swallowed string or toy parts. A good cat policy is one whose wording covers those problems at the age your cat is likely to have them.

We read each insurer's policy or sample policy and record what it says in our fine print library. Every insurer fact on this page comes from that library and names the insurer it applies to. We are not an insurance agent, and nothing here is advice to buy a particular plan.

The ranking is sorted by our score. Half of it comes from policy terms: waiting periods, knee and hip rules, how cured conditions are handled, dental cover and enrollment age. The rest comes from public customer ratings and how popular each insurer is. The score is the same for cats and dogs, and knee and hip rules mostly affect dogs, so the cat-specific notes below can matter more than a small gap in score.

Best cat insurance for each situation

Which insurer fits depends on your cat's teeth, history and age. Each pick below comes only from the policy wording in our library.

Best for dental illness: Fetch, Embrace, Figo and Odie

These four policies name dental illness as covered, and each attaches a condition. That matters for cats: Cornell's Feline Health Center reports that 50 to 90% of cats older than four have some form of dental disease ^[1].

• Fetch: covers dental disease as an illness unless signs showed before enrollment or during the waiting period. Its definition of dental disease includes gingivitis and stomatitis. Preventive cleanings are excluded.
• Embrace: covers dental illness up to a $1,000 annual sub-limit. Tartar, plaque or gingivitis present before enrollment blocks cover until treated, and cleanings are never covered.
• Figo: covers dental illness as long as your cat has an annual dental exam and you follow your vet's advice. Periodontal signs before the start date or during the wait are excluded.
• Odie: covers periodontal disease, including extractions, if there were no prior signs. From age 3 it requires an anesthetic cleaning and exam within the prior 13 months.

ASPCA, MetLife, Pumpkin and Spot do not name dental disease as a benefit of its own. Their policies cover it under general illness. ASPCA, Pumpkin and Spot list tooth extractions and exclude cleanings unless they treat a covered illness. Pumpkin's marketing says periodontal disease is covered, but the policy reaches it only through the general illness benefit. More detail is in our dental cover guide.

Best for senior cats: no upper age limit

Six insurers in our library state no upper enrollment age: Fetch, Figo, MetLife, Odie, Pumpkin and Spot.

• Fetch: no upper age limit (minimum 6 weeks). The policy adds vet-care duties at renewal for cats 10 and older.
• Figo: no upper age limit (minimum 8 weeks).
• MetLife: no upper age limit.
• Odie: no upper age limit (minimum 7 weeks).
• Pumpkin: no upper age limit, with cat annual limits of $5,000, $7,000, $15,000 or unlimited.
• Spot: no upper age limit.

Embrace takes accident and illness enrollments only for cats under 15. At 15 and older it offers an accident-only plan. We could not confirm ASPCA's enrollment age from a current document, so it is left off this list. For most of these insurers, the age fact comes from the policy not setting a maximum, so confirm it on your quote.

Age matters because the expensive cat diseases tend to arrive late. Cornell reports chronic kidney disease in up to 40% of cats over 10 and 80% of cats over 15 ^[2], and says hyperthyroidism mostly affects cats middle-aged and older ^[3]. No age limit only helps with problems that start after the policy does.

Best for a cat with a past condition: ASPCA, Pumpkin and Spot

ASPCA, Pumpkin and Spot have the shortest cured-condition period in our library: a curable condition that has gone 180 days without treatment or symptoms is treated as new.

• ASPCA: 180 days, except ligament and knee conditions. This comes from a 2020 sample form, and newer forms may be stricter on chronic conditions.
• Pumpkin: 180 days, except chronic and ligament or knee conditions.
• Spot: 180 days, except chronic and ligament or knee conditions.

The others take longer or work differently. Embrace needs 12 consecutive months free of signs and treatment. Figo needs 365 days and says chronic conditions are never curable. Fetch excludes a curable condition for 365 days, then covers it with an annual vet exam, with stricter rules if it comes back. Odie has no cure clause but looks back only 18 months, so a non-chronic problem last seen before that window falls outside it. MetLife's 2021 sample policy has no cured-condition clause, though its website says curable conditions are typically covered. Our pre-existing conditions guide compares the full wording.

For cats, the line between curable and chronic decides most of this. Cornell describes kidney disease as progressive with no definitive cure ^[2], and diabetes as having no cure even though many cats reach remission ^[4]. None of the clauses in our library say how diabetic remission is treated, so ask the insurer before counting on it. A one-off bout of urinary trouble is where a cure clause can help, if the insurer agrees it was cured. Cornell notes that most cats rarely have lower urinary tract problems again, while a few have frequent recurrences ^[5].

Best for fast accident cover: Embrace, MetLife, Figo and Fetch

Illness cover starts after 14 days at every insurer in our library except Fetch, where it is 15 days, so the real difference is how soon accidents are covered.

• Embrace: 0 days for accidents (2 days in Kansas and South Carolina).
• MetLife: 0 days for accidents.
• Figo: 1 day. Its 6-month orthopedic wait applies to dogs only.
• Fetch: no wait for accidents from an unexpected event. Injuries from normal activity fall under the 15-day wait.

This matters for cats that chew string, hair ties or toy parts. NAPHIA's industry report gives foreign body ingestion as an example of what accident cover is for ^[6]. PetMD puts intestinal blockage surgery in cats at $500 to $4,000, and notes that linear foreign bodies such as string are more likely to perforate the intestine ^[7]. See every insurer's waits in our waiting periods guide.

What cat owners should check in a policy

Check three things: how dental disease is worded, how urinary and kidney problems fit the pre-existing rules, and whether your cat can enroll at its age. These details sit in the exclusions and definitions, not on the marketing page.

Dental. Look for dental illness named as covered, then read the condition next to it. Because most adult cats have some dental disease ^[1], tartar or gingivitis present before enrollment can block cover at Embrace, Fetch, Figo and Odie. Cornell also reports that 30 to 70% of cats show some sign of tooth resorption, the most common cause of tooth loss in cats ^[1].

Urinary and kidney. Cornell calls urethral obstruction "a true medical emergency" and says male cats are at greater risk ^[5]. One study estimated standard treatment at $1,200 to $1,800 in 2010, and cited reported recurrence rates of 35% and 36% with conventional care ^[8]. If your cat has had a blockage, the pre-existing clause decides whether the next one is covered. Kidney disease and hyperthyroidism build more slowly but cost a lot: radioactive iodine treatment for hyperthyroidism runs about $2,300 to $2,900 at the University of Illinois teaching hospital ^[9]. NAPHIA's list of the largest cat claims paid in 2025 includes a $36.6K urinary claim and a $35.9K kidney disease claim ^[6].

Age. Check the maximum enrollment age and any renewal duties. Embrace's accident and illness cover is for cats under 15, and Fetch adds vet-care duties at renewal for cats 10 and older.

Indoor vs outdoor cats: does it change anything?

It does not change the policy terms we track. None of the waiting periods, dental rules, pre-existing rules or age limits in our library depend on whether a cat goes outside. It can change which risks you are insuring against.

Outdoor access brings its own risks. A 2019 Auburn University meta-analysis, published in Biology Letters, found that cats allowed to roam outdoors were 2.77 times more likely to have parasitic infections than indoor-only cats ^[10].

Indoor cats are not free of risk. Cornell lists an indoor litter box, restricted outdoor access, little exercise and extra weight among the patterns seen in cats with lower urinary tract disease ^[5]. Urinary, dental, kidney and thyroid problems are all illnesses, so an accident-only plan would pay for none of them, indoors or out.

How much is cat insurance?

The average accident and illness policy for a US cat cost $435 a year in 2025, about $36 a month, according to NAPHIA's 2026 State of the Industry report ^[6]. That was up 12.6% from $386 in 2024. The average for dogs was $836. Accident-only cover for cats averaged $112 a year.

Your own quote depends on your cat's age, breed and location, plus the deductible and reimbursement level you choose. Few cat owners have cover at all: NAPHIA puts the share of insured US cats at 2.29% ^[6].

A single large claim can outweigh years of premiums. One radioactive iodine treatment at the Illinois price ^[9] costs about as much as five to nearly seven years of the average premium, before any deductible or reimbursement is applied. Whether that trade makes sense depends on what you could pay from savings if it happened.