Embrace Pet Insurance Review: Affordable & Customizable Coverage | 2024 Update

Pets are part of the family, and having insurance to cover their health needs can offer you some peace of mind. But you don't want to rush into buying pet insurance — you need the right policy to cover your furry family members and ensure that money never gets in the way of offering the best care possible.

Embrace Pet Insurance is one of the options available to you. If you have a dog or a cat, Embrace offers several different coverage options, including accident and illness coverage, accident-only coverage, and an add-on wellness plan for routine care.

This Embrace Pet Insurance review will help you determine if this coverage is right for your furry family member.

In this article

• What is Embrace Pet Insurance?
• How does Embrace Pet Insurance work?
• What coverage does Embrace Pet Insurance offer?
• How to get insurance coverage from Embrace
• How to maximize your savings with Embrace
• FAQs
• Bottom line

What is Embrace Pet Insurance?

Embrace started as a 2003 business plan competition winner at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The company sold its first pet insurance policy on October 10, 2006, and has been expanding ever since.

Embrace partnered with the American Modern Insurance Group in 2012, an insurance carrier with an A+ Superior rating from AM Best, a service that measures the financial health of insurance companies. It has also formed partnerships with other organizations, including Armed Forces Insurance and the Helen Woodward Animal Center, a non-profit animal welfare organization.

Today, Embrace touts its core values as personal responsibility, being passionate, customer satisfaction, and giving back. The company donates $2 to charity for every pet insurance policy sold, and it promises to provide "genuine support" to those who become policyholders.

How does Embrace Pet Insurance work?

Embrace offers customizable pet insurance coverage. You can choose to have between 70% and 90% of vet bills covered for accidents or illnesses and can pick an annual reimbursement limit between $5,000 and $30,000 for accident and illness plans.

There is no separate per-condition limit on the amount covered when your pet becomes ill, and both consultation and exam fees at licensed vets are included if your dog or cat has an accident or gets sick. Covered treatments include:

• Emergency care
• Specialist care, such as treatments provided by an oncologist or internal medicine expert
• Diagnostic testing
• Alternative therapies such as acupuncture and physiotherapy
• Hospitalizations
• Surgery
• Prosthetics
• Mobility devices
• Prescription drugs

In addition to other options for customizing your accident and illness coverage, you can also choose your annual deductible with set options ranging from $200 to $1,000. Embrace offers a unique diminishing deductible as well, which can reduce the amount you have to pay out of pocket by $50 for each year that you don't make a claim.

You also have the option to add wellness coverage, which pays for routine care. You can choose a plan that covers between $250 and $650 per year in wellness care. This is separate from your accident and illness coverage.

Finally, Embrace also accident-only coverage. This type of coverage doesn't provide treatment for illnesses, but it is available even to pets 15-years-of-age and older.

What coverage does Embrace Pet Insurance offer?

Anyone who has ever faced emergency vet bills knows pet insurance is worth it, as these bills can add up very quickly. But it’s important to understand how the best pet insurance works with Embrace before you decide if it’s the right option for your pet.

Embrace Pet Insurance offers an accident and illness plan and an optional plan that covers routine care. The accident and illness plan can help offset the cost of vet bills associated with:

• Accidents
• Illnesses
• Dental illness up to $1,000 per year
• Breed-specific conditions
• Hereditary and genetic conditions
• Chronic conditions
• Cancer treatment

Embrace's willingness to cover genetic and hereditary conditions makes it stand apart from competitors, many of whom exclude common breed-specific conditions or congenital defects.

Embrace also sets itself apart from other pet insurance providers based on its policy related to pre-existing conditions. While no pet insurance company covers pre-existing medical problems your animal has when you sign up, Embrace distinguishes between incurable pre-existing conditions and those animals can recover from. If a pet has a curable pre-existing condition and is symptom-free for 12 months, Embrace might begin to cover that condition in the future.

Pet owners can also choose to add optional Wellness Rewards to their accident and illness plan with Embrace. This covers routine care such as:

• Wellness exams
• Vaccinations
• Flea and tick preventatives
• Spay and neuter surgery
• Nutritional supplements
• Nail trimming
• Anal gland expression
• Prescription diets
• Chiropractic maintenance care
• Training

Of course, you can't just get an unlimited amount of wellness care — unfortunately, that’s not how pet insurance works. You'll choose between three coverage allowances, including a plan that offers $250 per year in care; $450 per year; or $650 per year in wellness care.

How to get insurance coverage from Embrace

Embrace's accident and illness and wellness policies are available to dogs and cats up to age 14, while accident-only coverage is available for animals of any age. You can choose to apply for coverage online by completing a simple application. Just be prepared to provide the following information for your pet:

• Name
• Species (dogs or cats only)
• Sex
• Breed
• Age
• Zip code

You will need to choose your policy options, including the annual reimbursement limit, your deductible amount, and the reimbursement percentage.

When you sign up, you are subject to a 14-day waiting period before illness coverage begins as well as a 48-hour waiting period before accident coverage starts. There is a six-month waiting period for orthopedic conditions, but this could potentially be waived if your pet gets an orthopedic exam after you buy your pet insurance policy.

To be eligible for pet insurance with Embrace, your animal must also have seen a licensed vet within the past 12 months, and you need to provide a record of the exam. If your pet hasn't been to a vet within the past year, your pet will have 14 days from the time you sign up for coverage to undergo a veterinary exam.

Although you won't have to provide a copy of these medical records to Embrace immediately, the insurer may request them before processing claims.