Embrace vs. Pets Best: Curable Pre-Existing Coverage vs. the Fastest Waiting Periods
Embrace is one of very few insurers that distinguishes curable from chronic pre-existing conditions: a cured ear infection or past vomiting episode can be re-covered after 12 consecutive symptom-free, treatment-free months, while chronic conditions stay excluded forever. Pets Best has the fastest start we track — a 3-day accident wait, waivable entirely with a qualifying vet exam within 30 days of enrollment — though illness still waits 14 days. Illustrative starting premiums favor Pets Best ($33/mo dog, $14/mo cat) over Embrace ($41/mo, $22/mo). Pick Embrace if your pet has a treatable condition in its history and you can go claim-free for a year; pick Pets Best if you're enrolling a healthy young pet and want coverage live fastest. Both hold 6 months on cruciate injuries unless a vet exam compresses the wait.
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- Embrace is one of the few insurers that explicitly distinguishes curable from chronic pre-existing conditions — an old ear infection or one-off vomiting bout can be re-covered after 12 consecutive symptom-free, treatment-free months; chronic conditions stay excluded for good.
- Pets Best has the fastest start in our lineup: a 3-day accident waiting period, waivable entirely with a qualifying vet exam submitted within 30 days of enrollment.
- Illustrative starting premiums: Embrace $41/mo for dogs and $22/mo for cats; Pets Best $33/mo for dogs and $14/mo for cats — Pets Best is the cheaper entry at both species.
- Both hold 6 months on cruciate ligament events, but both also reduce it: Embrace cuts orthopedic waits to 14 days with a vet orthopedic exam submitted in your first two weeks; Pets Best may reduce or waive waits when a participating veterinarian certifies the pet.
- Neither insurer covers pre-existing conditions that showed signs before enrollment or during the waiting period — Embrace's curable-condition path is the only route back to coverage between these two.
The Short Answer
These two plans answer different fears. If your worry is a pet with something already on its medical record — a resolved ear infection, a past upset stomach — Embrace is the rare carrier that will reconsider it: curable pre-existing conditions can be re-evaluated and covered again after 12 consecutive symptom-free, treatment-free months. Chronic conditions such as diabetes, ongoing allergies, and chronic orthopedic issues stay excluded permanently. If instead your worry is getting coverage live before anything goes wrong, Pets Best starts faster than anyone else we track: a 3-day accident wait that can be waived entirely with a qualifying vet exam submitted within 30 days of enrollment. The honest framing is that each plan's strength is narrow. Embrace's curable-condition path requires a full clean year before it reopens anything, and Pets Best's fast start does nothing for illnesses, which still wait 14 days.
How Embrace's Curable Pre-Existing Rule Works
Every insurer we track excludes pre-existing conditions — anything that showed signs, even undiagnosed, before enrollment or during the waiting period. What makes Embrace unusual is that it explicitly separates curable from chronic. An old ear infection or a one-off bout of vomiting, once the pet has gone 12 consecutive months without symptoms or treatment, can be re-evaluated and covered again. Chronic conditions never come back: diabetes, ongoing allergies, and chronic orthopedic problems remain excluded for good, as do knee and ligament issues under most curable-condition policies elsewhere in the market.
This matters most for pets adopted with a known history. A shelter cat with a treated ear infection, or a dog whose puppy-era stomach troubles are documented, has a realistic route back to coverage under Embrace that simply doesn't exist at carriers applying a blanket lifetime exclusion. The rest of the policy supports long-horizon owners too: the Healthy Pet Deductible drops your annual deductible $50 for every claim-free year, annual accident-and-illness limits run from $2,000 to unlimited (accident-only is fixed at $5,000), and the optional Wellness Rewards add-on provides a $250 or $450 allowance covering routine items most insurers skip, including grooming, nail trims and nutrition consults. Waiting periods are short on paper: accidents are covered as soon as the policy is effective, illnesses after 14 days.
How Pets Best Gets You Covered Fastest
Pets Best's accident waiting period is 3 days — and it can be waived entirely if you submit a qualifying vet exam within 30 days of enrollment. Illnesses still wait 14 days. Orthopedic conditions, specifically cruciate ligament events, carry a 6-month hold, but waiting periods may be reduced or waived when a participating veterinarian certifies the pet (exam up to 3 days before or 7 days after the effective date, form back within 30 days). That exam-waiver mechanic is the real story: an owner who schedules a checkup in week one can effectively compress most of the waiting-period risk out of the first month.
Pricing starts lower here too: about $33/mo for dogs and $14/mo for cats as illustrative entry points, against Embrace's $41/$22. Deductibles run from $50 to $1,000 annually — the lowest floor among the insurers we compare — with 70%, 80% or 90% reimbursement and limits of $5,000, $10,000 or unlimited. Wellness comes as two optional tiers, plus separate add-ons for exam fees and physical therapy; notably, the Plus plan tier bundles exam-fee coverage in rather than selling it as an add-on, which matters because on the base Essential plan exam fees cost extra. Editorial scores sit at 8.1/10 for dogs and 8.4/10 for cats, versus Embrace's 8.8 and 8.7.
Where Each Plan's Fine Print Bites
Embrace's main structural catch is the orthopedic window: cruciate ligament injuries, IVDD and hip dysplasia all wait 6 months unless your vet performs an orthopedic exam and submits it within your first two weeks — cutting the hold to 14 days but requiring action almost immediately after signup. Miss that two-week submission window and you carry the full half-year exposure on exactly the injuries that generate the biggest bills. Its accident-only plan is also a fixed $5,000 a year, which limits its usefulness as a budget option, and the curable-condition benefit requires discipline: any recurrent symptom or treatment restarts the 12-month clock.
Pets Best's catch sits on the same knee-ligament line: despite the waivable waits, cruciate events default to 6 months unless the participating-vet certification happens inside the tight exam windows. And like every standard-exclusion carrier, anything documented before enrollment stays excluded forever — there is no curable-condition re-coverage here, so a pet with prior ear infections or GI episodes gets no second chance. Owners who want exam fees covered by default should note the base Essential plan charges extra for them.
Who Each Plan Is Actually For
Choose Embrace if your pet has a treatable condition in its history and you can commit to a claim-free year — the curable pre-existing re-coverage after 12 symptom-free months is genuinely rare, and the shrinking Healthy Pet Deductible rewards owners who rarely claim, which matches its 'best for owners who rarely claim' positioning. Skip it if you need orthopedic cover live on day one without a vet-exam scramble, or if you want an accident-only plan above $5,000. Choose Pets Best if your priority is speed to coverage on a healthy new pet or puppy: the 3-day, waivable accident wait, the $50 deductible floor, and the lowest starting premiums make it the efficient early-enrollment play. But understand that its fast start covers accidents only — illness waits the standard 14 days regardless — and a pre-existing condition is a permanent exclusion with no cure path. If your pet already has chronic anything on record, neither plan will ever cover it.