Pet insurance subscriptions jump by over 22% in South Korea

Official data shows that just 1% of pets in the East Asian country are insured.

New data from the Korea Insurance Research Institute (KIRI) unveiled that in the first half of 2023 there were 87,911 policy subscriptions in the country. This is a 22.3% more from the same period last year.

According to local media, the 11 pet insurance firms—reportedly the only ones to exist in South Korea—received a total of ₩21 billion ($15.7M/€14.7M) in premiums from January to June 2023.

The value of premiums in 2022 reached ₩28.8 billion ($21.5M/€20.2M).

The Korea Insurance Research Institute (KIRI) found that despite the jump this year, the figure remains much lower than in other countries. Data shows that just 1.1% of the 8 million pets in Korea are insured, up from 0.4% in 2020.

“As pet insurance is not well established yet in Korea like it is in the US or Japan, lack of insurance products and understanding are not helping pet owners in purchasing a new plan,” says the International Insurance Society.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs’ (MAFRA) recently announced a plan to expand the country’s pet industry to ₩15 trillion ($11.4B/€10.3B) in 3 years’ time.