US pet insurance policies in force

As cybercriminals have sent more phishing emails, Americans have purchased more pet insurance policies, a correlation that suggests either that people are insuring their pets against email fraud or that the same internet that enables scam campaigns also enables comparison shopping for goldendoodle health plans. The correlation is 0.965 across eighteen years, which is strong enough to make you check whether your pet insurance renewal notice is actually a phishing attempt. It might be both.

Phishing attacks grew from about 170,000 reported incidents in 2005 to over 4.7 million by 2022, scaling with internet adoption, email volume, and the increasing sophistication of automated scam infrastructure. Pet insurance policies grew from about 850,000 to over 4.4 million during the same period, driven by increasing veterinary costs, the pet humanization trend, and the proliferation of online comparison tools that made purchasing a policy as easy as clicking a link—which, incidentally, is also how phishing works. Both trends are powered by the same engine: more people doing more things online, including both productive and predatory activities, with the same click-and-submit interface serving both legitimate insurance purchases and credential theft.

Eighteen years of phishing and pet insurance growing together is a meditation on the dual nature of the internet: the same infrastructure that lets you protect your cat also lets someone in another country pretend to be your bank. Both activities require an email address, a click, and a certain amount of trust. The internet provides all three. The correlation provides nothing but a warning to read the fine print.