Embrace Pet Insurance Review 2022

Founded in 2003 and based in Cleveland, Embrace offers comprehensive pet insurance for cats and dogs. Its standard plan reimburses up to 90% of your vet expenses for a wide variety of conditions and treatments. You can easily customize the plan to include a deductible, reimbursement amount and annual limit you feel comfortable with.

All Embrace pet insurance policies come with a unique feature: a diminishing deductible for healthy animals. Each year you don’t file a claim, your deductible will be reduced by $50.

Embrace donates $2 per policy to charitable causes.

Embrace pet insurance is available in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

Embrace offers several types of coverage to choose from.

For most pets, Embrace offers a single policy covering accidents and illnesses. It will reimburse you a certain percentage of your vet bill, up to your annual limit and minus your deductible. As long as you enroll your pet by the age of 14, they can have accident and illness coverage for life.

Pets who start their policies at age 15 or older are eligible for accident-only coverage.

In most states, you can add Wellness Rewards, which offers up to $650 per year for flea and tick prevention, vaccinations and other routine expenses. There’s no copayment for Wellness Rewards, and your spending under this plan doesn’t count toward the deductible on your accident and injury policy.

As long as you use your entire reimbursement allowance, Wellness Rewards will save you about $25 on care per year. For example, if you choose the $250 annual allowance, you’ll pay $18.25 a month for the coverage, or $225 per year. But if you don’t spend the full amount at the vet, you could end up paying more for the coverage than you get out of it.

Wellness Rewards isn’t available in Rhode Island.

The standard Embrace policy includes: 

• Exams, treatment, hospitalization and surgery for injuries and illnesses, including cancer.

• Diagnostic tests.

• Prescription medication.

• Hereditary conditions.

• Congenital conditions.

• Dental illnesses, including gingivitis, up to $1,000 a year.

• Complementary treatments such as acupuncture and laser therapy.

• Behavioral therapies.

The accident-only plan for senior pets doesn’t pay for treatment of any illnesses. However, it will cover scenarios like your cat swallowing a toy or your dog getting hit by a car. This policy also covers bloat, an emergency condition in which the stomach twists upon itself. Prescription medication to help treat these accidents is covered in every state except New York.

Wellness Rewards covers routine care, such as:

• Vaccinations.

• Spaying and neutering.

• Flea, tick and heartworm preventatives.

• Microchipping.

• Wellness exams.

• Grooming and nail clipping.

• Cremation or burial.

• Nutritional supplements and prescription diet food.

• Preventative teeth cleaning.

Embrace accident and illness insurance doesn’t cover:

• Pre-existing conditions, except for curable conditions that haven’t recurred in at least a year.

• Expenses associated with breeding or pregnancy.

• Illness or injury due to fighting, racing or mistreatment.

• Cosmetic procedures.

• Wellness care.

• Prescription supplements or diets.

The accident-only plan won’t cover the above or treatment for any illness.

Deductibles: Annual deductibles for the accident and illness policy range from $200 to $1,000 per year. For the accident-only policy, an annual deductible of $100 applies. For each year you don’t file a claim on either of these plans, your deductible will drop $50 until it reaches $0. If you file a claim, you’ll pay the reduced amount; then your deductible will reset to the original amount the following year.

Reimbursement amounts: For the accident and illness policy, you can choose to be reimbursed for 70%, 80% or 90% of your vet expenses. The accident-only policy reimburses you for 90% of your expenses.

Coverage limits: For the accident and illness policy, annual coverage limits range from $5,000 to $30,000. For the accident-only policy, the annual limit is $5,000.

Age restrictions: Pets must be at least 6 weeks old to get a policy. There’s no maximum age, but pets 15 and up at the time of enrollment can’t get accident and illness insurance, only coverage for accidents.

Waiting periods: Embrace waiting periods are 48 hours for accidents, 14 days for illnesses and six months for orthopedic conditions for dogs. You may be able to reduce the latter period to 14 days by taking your dog for an orthopedic exam. There’s no waiting period for Wellness Rewards.

Embrace offers the following ways to save on pet insurance:

• 10% multipet discount.

• 10% discount for those whose employer offers Embrace pet insurance as an employee benefit (not available in Florida, New York, North Dakota or Tennessee).

• 5% military discount (not available in New York or Tennessee).

You can avoid a monthly billing fee by paying your annual premium in full, upfront.

Website: The Embrace website is easy to navigate, offers quick online quotes and has plenty of coverage information. You can log in to the MyEmbrace portal to file and track claims, update your billing or policy information, add a new pet or contact customer support.

App: The highly rated Embrace mobile app lets you file claims, check remaining coverage limits, update your policy or add a new pet.

Claims: You can submit a claim online, through the app or by email, fax or physical mail. It generally takes 10 to 15 business days for Embrace to process a claim. For faster payment, sign up for direct deposit rather than receiving a check in the mail.

Customer service: You can call Embrace’s customer service representatives at 800-511-9172, Monday through Saturday. You can also send an email or use the online chatbot. The PawSupport telemedicine service offers 24/7 support if you have questions about your pet’s care. You can access PawSupport by logging into your online portal.

Here’s how Embrace stacks up against three other popular pet insurance companies.

The Healthy Paws plan has no annual or lifetime limits but offers similar reimbursement options to the Embrace plan. Healthy Paws doesn’t sell wellness coverage.

Embrace covers a few things Healthy Paws doesn’t, including behavioral therapies and exam fees for illnesses and injuries. However, neither plan pays for prescription diets.

Healthy Paws promises quicker claims processing than Embrace, with most claims handled within two business days.

One major difference between Embrace and Trupanion is how each company treats deductibles. Like many pet insurers, Embrace uses annual deductibles that apply across all injuries and illnesses and reset every year.

In most states, Trupanion charges lifetime per-condition deductibles instead. Say your pet develops chronic allergies and requires ongoing treatment. Once you’ve met the deductible for that condition, you no longer have to pay it for the life of your pet.

Trupanion’s standard plans offer 90% reimbursement and unlimited annual limits in most states, while Embrace offers more ways to customize your coverage (and potentially reduce your premium).

Some treatments that Embrace’s plan covers cost extra from Trupanion, such as acupuncture and behavioral therapies. Unlike Trupanion, Embrace offers optional wellness coverage.

ASPCA’s accident and illness plan covers most of the same things Embrace’s plan does, including hereditary and congenital conditions, exam fees for accidents and illnesses, and alternative and behavioral therapies. However, ASPCA also covers prescription food and supplements, while Embrace does not.

ASPCA’s waiting period is 14 days for all conditions, including cruciate ligament issues. That’s shorter than Embrace’s six-month orthopedic waiting period for dogs, but longer than its 48-hour period for illnesses.

While Embrace has an accident-only plan for pets who enroll at age 15 or above, ASPCA’s accident-only plan is available for any pet owner who doesn’t want illness coverage.

ASPCA’s claim processing may be a little slower than Embrace’s — 30 days instead of 10 to 15 business days.