Does pet insurance cover luxating patella?
Lemonade Pet is not sold in every state.
Yes, if the knee is healthy when you enroll. Luxating patella is treated as an illness or hereditary condition by the insurers we review, so it is covered once the waiting period passes and no sign of it was recorded before enrollment or during that wait. A limp or kneecap note already on file makes it pre-existing and excluded, because luxating patella never qualifies as curable.
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.
What decides coverage
Luxating patella, a kneecap that slips out of its groove, is one of the most common orthopedic claims in small breeds and shows up in our breed risk notes for active breeds such as the Bengal. Insurers cover it under accident and illness terms, but the fine print is timing: anything showing signs before enrollment or during the waiting period is excluded as pre-existing, and joint conditions are chronic, so no curable-condition reinstatement path brings them back.
Surgery costs run high when grade severity demands it, which is why annual-limit headroom matters. Trupanion pays unlimited with a per-condition deductible paid once for the life of the pet; Embrace, Spot and Lemonade all offer unlimited options at the top of their limit ranges.
The orthopedic waiting periods
Spot is the fastest documented option for joints: it applies no separate orthopedic wait beyond its standard 14-day accident and illness period. Current Lemonade marketing waits (your state policy controls) are 0 days for accidents from the policy effective date, 14 days for illness, and 30 days for orthopedic conditions, with no separate 6-month cruciate wait.
Embrace holds cruciate ligament injuries, IVDD and hip dysplasia for 6 months, cut to 14 days if your vet performs an orthopedic exam and submits it within your first two weeks. Figo has a similar 6-month orthopedic wait, waivable with an exam inside the enrollment window. Pets Best documents its 6-month hold for cruciate ligament events specifically. Illness waits otherwise run about 14 days across the lineup.
How to keep a luxating patella claimable
Enroll before any vet visit records a limp, a kneecap slip, or a grading note. If your vet spots a luxation early and you enroll afterward, expect that knee to be excluded on every application you file. For breeds with known joint risk, enrolling young and completing any waivable-exam paperwork in the first two weeks is what keeps the timeline short.
Related questions
Keep reading
Not sure which plan fits?
The Advisor ranks the eight reviewed plans from nine questions. The Advisor is not a quote form.
Start the AdvisorPremium figures are illustrative starting estimates, not quotes. See our methodology for how scores are set.