How much is pet insurance in NZ?

Written by Henry Smith · Reviewed by Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931) · Updated 2026-09-17 · Reviewed quarterly, when the underlying data is restated.

Financial advice is provided by Craig Smith Business Services Limited, trading as Smiths Insurance & KiwiSaver, a licensed Financial Advice Provider (FSP712931). QuoteHub is a trading name.

AA Pet Insurance's own policy document names the price drivers directly: "Other factors that can affect the premium are the cover you have chosen, the excess selected, your pet's age, species and breed, and any other factors we decide may increase or decrease the risk to us of insuring your pet" (AA Pet Insurance Policy Document, p.21, retrieved 17 September 2026). No insurer publishes the weighting behind that formula, but each lets you see, and often choose, the individual pieces of it. This page, drawn from the same seven insurers on QuoteHub's pet insurance hub, walks through each driver with the insurer's own numbers; for the few example premiums insurers do publish, see pet insurance cost NZ.

Species and breed

Where an insurer separates the two, cats cost less to insure than dogs on the same plan: Petcover's own examples show a dog from $29 a month against a cat from $20 a month on the same Core plan, co-pay and excess (Petcover NZ, retrieved 17 September 2026), and Tower's page shows cat cover from $3 a week against dog cover from $4 a week on its Accident Only plan (Tower Pet Insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026). No insurer publishes a dollar breed loading, but breed still changes the shape of the policy. PD Insurance's eligibility wording states: "Select breed dogs older than 6 years will only qualify for the Accident Plan" (PD NZ Pet Insurance Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026), three years earlier than for other dogs, and Tower caps new enrolment at the 5th birthday, not the usual 8th, for a named "select breed" list including Great Dane, Rottweiler, Bulldogs, Mastiffs, Dachshund, Boxer and St Bernard, with no cat breeds on it (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026). Petcover applies the same select-breed split to its age-based excess loading, covered next.

Age

Age is the one input every insurer treats as fixed, and Petcover is the only one of the seven to publish an exact loading schedule. Its Age Contribution table, identical across the Superior, Economy and Catastrophe PDS documents, reads: "Dogs 8+ years: 20% / 10+ years: 35%. Select Breed Dogs 4+ years: 20% / 7+ years: 35%. Cats 8+ years: 20% / 10+ years: 35%" (Petcover Superior PDS, retrieved 17 September 2026), charged in addition to the pet's Fixed Excess and any Optional Pet % Share Excess, so it stacks on top of whatever excess and co-pay the policy already carries. Other insurers act on age through entry and upgrade rules rather than a published percentage: AA Pet accepts new policies from 8 weeks to 9 years (AA Pet Insurance Policy Document, p.10, retrieved 17 September 2026), and PD Insurance's wording allows upgrades "up until your pet reaches its 9th birthday, or if your pet is a select breed, up to its 6th birthday" (PD NZ Pet Insurance Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026), so an older pet can be locked out of broader cover even on a renewable policy. See pet insurance for older dogs NZ and pet insurance for senior cats NZ for the full age-limit table.

Excess and co-pay choices

This is the input you control most directly. The seven insurers use three different mechanisms rather than one shared model.

Insurer	Excess	Co-pay / reimbursement
AA Pet Insurance	$0 / $100 / $250 / $500, per condition (Dog Insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026)	Fixed 80% / 20% co-pay, not selectable (AA Pet Insurance Policy Document, p.10, retrieved 17 September 2026)
Cove	$500 (Accident Only) or $1,000 (Major); variable on Major + Minor	10% (Accident Only, Major) or 20% (Major + Minor) (Cove pet insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026)
PD Insurance	$100 / $150 / $200, per claim (PD Insurance FAQ page, retrieved 17 September 2026)	Not published as a percentage; PD pays 100% above the dollar excess (PD NZ Pet Insurance Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026)
Petcover	$0 / $100 / $200, Mid-Range family only (Petcover Mid-Range PDS, retrieved 17 September 2026)	10% / 20% / 30%, Mid-Range family only
SPCA Pet	$0 (Everyday, The Works); $1,000 (Big Stuff) (The Works Cover Policy Document, p.5, retrieved 17 September 2026)	70% (Everyday), 80% (The Works), 90% (Big Stuff) benefit, fixed per tier
Southern Cross Pet	$100 / $250 / $500, per policy year (PetCare Policy Document, p.9, retrieved 17 September 2026)	10% / 20% / 30% (PetCare Policy Document, p.10, retrieved 17 September 2026)
Tower	None on any tier (Tower Pet Insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026)	Fixed 20% co-pay on every tier, not selectable (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026)

Disclosure: QuoteHub does not sell these policies on this page. Its licensed advisers may receive commission from an insurer if you take out cover through them.

AA Pet, SPCA Pet and Tower fix the co-pay and let you move only the dollar excess (Tower has none at all); Petcover and Southern Cross let you choose both together, the combination that moves the premium the most; PD Insurance reimburses the full claim above whichever excess you pick, so the excess alone sets your share. On a $1,500 bill under AA Pet's structure, a $250 excess plus a 20% co-pay on the remaining $1,250 leaves you paying $500 and the insurer paying $1,000. See pet insurance excess explained NZ for more worked examples.

Annual limit

A higher annual limit costs more than a lower one on the same plan. Entry-level limits already span a wide range: SPCA Pet's Everyday Cover publishes an $11,000 annual limit (Everyday Cover Policy Document, p.7, retrieved 17 September 2026), while AA Pet, Cove and Tower's entry tiers all start at $5,000 (AA Pet Insurance Policy Document, p.10; Cove pet insurance page; Accident Only Policy Wording, all retrieved 17 September 2026). AA Pet lets you pick $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 on the same plan (AA Pet Insurance Policy Document, p.10, retrieved 17 September 2026), and Petcover's Superior family widens from $10,000 up to $20,000 for dogs depending on the sub-tier (Petcover Superior PDS, retrieved 17 September 2026). See pet insurance annual limits and sub-limits NZ for the full range.

Accident-only vs comprehensive

Every insurer that sells more than one tier charges less for accident-only cover than for a plan that also covers illness, because accident-only carves out the largest cost category, disease. Southern Cross's own examples show this on the same cat: PetCare (accident and illness) runs from approximately $8 a month on its $2,500-limit BronzeRibbon tier, while AcciPet (accident only) runs from approximately $7 a month on a larger $5,000 limit (Compare Pet Insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026). Tower and Cove structure their range the same way, Accident Only below the illness-inclusive tiers (Accident Only Policy Wording; Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording; Cove pet insurance page, all retrieved 17 September 2026). PD Insurance's Accident Plan excludes illness entirely and, per its own eligibility wording, is also the only plan select-breed dogs over 6 or any dog over 9 can still buy (PD NZ Pet Insurance Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026), so for an older pet its lower price is sometimes the only structure on offer, not a discount you choose. See accident-only pet insurance NZ for what each tier excludes.

Multi-pet and member discounts

Five of the seven publish a stated discount for more than one pet or a membership tie-in. Southern Cross offers a "5% Additional pet discount" per extra pet, stacking with a 2.5% Health Society member discount and a 2.5% direct-debit discount (PetCare Policy Document, p.31, retrieved 17 September 2026). AA Pet publishes a "10% multi-pet discount" plus a separate 5% AA Member discount, though only on its marketing page, not the policy document itself (Main pet insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026). PD Insurance publishes a 5% discount for two or more pets (PD Insurance FAQ page, retrieved 17 September 2026), and SPCA Pet publishes "10% on a second and each further pet policy" (SPCA Pet Insurance homepage, retrieved 17 September 2026). Petcover states a threshold, three or more eligible pets, without publishing the percentage itself (Petcover Superior PDS, retrieved 17 September 2026). Tower's general multi-policy discount was discontinued for new customers and was never pet-specific (Tower Multi-Policy Discount page, retrieved 17 September 2026); Cove publishes only an annual-payment discount of up to 10%, with no multi-pet discount found on the pages checked (Cove pet insurance page, retrieved 17 September 2026). Full detail at multi-pet insurance discounts NZ.

Questions people ask

Does my dog's breed change the price even if the insurer doesn't publish a breed loading?

Yes, indirectly. No insurer publishes a breed loading, but breed changes when the other drivers above kick in: PD Insurance cuts select-breed dogs off from illness cover three years earlier than other dogs (PD NZ Pet Insurance Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026), Petcover's Age Contribution starts at 4 years for select breeds against 8 for others (Petcover Superior PDS, retrieved 17 September 2026), and Tower stops new select-breed enrolments at 5 against 8 for others (Comprehensive & Essentials Policy Wording, retrieved 17 September 2026).

Which single choice moves the premium the most?

Of the inputs you control, the excess and co-pay combination does, since it directly changes what the insurer is on the hook for on every claim. Age, species and breed are fixed by the pet; plan tier and annual limit also move the price, but fewer insurers publish a selectable menu for those.

Is a $0 excess always the more expensive option?

An insurer offering a $0 excess option, AA Pet or the Mid-Range Petcover family, charges more for it than a higher-excess option on the same plan. SPCA Pet's Everyday Cover and The Works Cover both carry $0 excess as standard, but pair it with a lower benefit percentage, 70% and 80%, than the $1,000-excess Big Stuff Cover's 90% (Everyday Cover Policy Document, p.5; Big Stuff Cover Policy Document, p.5, both retrieved 17 September 2026), the trade-off a lower excess buys generally.

A licensed NZ adviser can compare the pet insurers on your pet's details. Get pet cover quotes.

Adviser's view

QuoteHub's read is that the excess and co-pay you choose move the premium more than any other input you actually control, since age, species and breed are fixed by the pet in front of you; the rest is the insurer's own individual quote.

Henry Smith, Financial Adviser (FSP1010699). General information, not personalised financial advice.

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Cite this page QuoteHub NZ (2026). How Much Is Pet Insurance in NZ? The Price Drivers. www.quotehub.co.nz/pet-insurance/how-much-is-pet-insurance-nz. Updated 2026-09-17.