Does Embrace pet insurance have a waiting period?
Lemonade Pet is not sold in every state.
Yes. Embrace covers accidents as soon as the policy is effective and waits 14 days for illness. Orthopedic conditions (cruciate ligament injuries, IVDD, hip dysplasia) carry a 6-month wait, cut to 14 days if your vet performs an orthopedic exam and submits it within your first two weeks of enrollment.
Get a Lemonade quote
Lemonade is the one insurer on this site we can send you to for a live quote. That does not make it the right plan for every pet. As of October 2, 2026, Lemonade Pet is not yet available in Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, or Wyoming.
Get a quote from LemonadeThe exclusions cheat sheet
A plain-English guide to waiting periods and key exclusions across eight insurers, with links to the full reviews.
The three clocks
Accidents: covered immediately from the policy effective date, the fastest documented start among the insurers we review alongside Fetch. Illness: 14 days. Orthopedic conditions: 6 months by default.
The orthopedic escape hatch is the feature to know: submit a vet-performed orthopedic exam within your first two weeks and the 6-month hold drops to 14 days. That paperwork is what makes Embrace competitive on joint coverage speed.
How the pre-existing rule interacts
Anything documented before enrollment or during an applicable wait counts as pre-existing. Embrace’s distinguishing feature is the curable path: curable conditions can be re-covered after 12 consecutive symptom-free, treatment-free months, though chronic conditions and knee or ligament conditions never qualify.
If you are enrolling a joint-risk breed, schedule the orthopedic exam in week one so the shortened clock applies before anything else can be written down.
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