Embrace vs Healthy Paws
Healthy Paws wins for most owners: unlimited payouts, no accident waiting period, and our top score of 9.3/10 against Embrace at 8.8. Embrace fights back with two things Healthy Paws does not have: a wellness allowance, and the most generous pre-existing-condition policy in this lineup, where a curable condition can be covered again after 12 symptom-free months. Embrace also cuts your deductible by $50 every claim-free year. The deciding factor is the cap: Embrace tops out at $30,000 a year while Healthy Paws is unlimited. Pick Healthy Paws for maximum protection, Embrace if your pet has a curable condition in its history or you rarely claim.
Side by side
| Embrace | Healthy Paws | |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial score (dogs) | 8.8/10 | 9.3/10 |
| Illustrative starting price | dogs from $41/mo, cats from $22/mo | dogs from $44/mo, cats from $24/mo |
| Annual limit | $30k | Unlimited |
| Deductible | Annual, $100 to $1,000 ($100/$250/$500/$750/$1,000). Drops $50 for every claim-free year via the Healthy Pet Deductible. | One annual deductible, chosen at enrollment: $100, $250, $500 or $1,000 |
| Reimbursement options | 70%, 80% or 90% | 70%, 80% or 90% |
| Accident wait | Covered as soon as the policy is effective | No waiting period |
| Illness wait | 14 days | 15 days |
| Orthopedic / cruciate wait | 6 months for cruciate ligament injury, IVDD and hip dysplasia , cut to 14 days if your vet performs an orthopedic exam and submits it within your first two weeks | Hip dysplasia waits 30 or 365 days (depends on state) for pets enrolled at 6 or younger; pets enrolled at 6 or older are not covered for hip dysplasia at all |
| Wellness add-on | Available | Not offered |
| Direct vet pay | No, reimbursement only | No, reimbursement only |
Starting prices are illustrative estimates for a healthy one-year-old animal, not quotes. Your real premium depends on breed, age, ZIP code, deductible and reimbursement rate.
Pre-existing conditions
Embrace: Curable pre-existing conditions (like an old ear infection or a one-off bout of vomiting) can be re-evaluated and covered again after 12 consecutive symptom-free, treatment-free months. Chronic conditions , diabetes, ongoing allergies, chronic orthopedic issues , stay excluded for good. Few competitors distinguish curable from chronic this explicitly.
Healthy Paws: Not covered. A condition counts as pre-existing if it showed any sign, even undiagnosed, before your policy started or during the 15-day waiting period. If one knee's cruciate ligament was hurt before enrollment or during the wait, the other knee's cruciate is excluded too.
Choose Embrace if
Your pet had a one-off illness before enrollment (an old ear infection, a single bout of vomiting) and you want a path back to coverage, since Embrace re-evaluates curable pre-existing conditions after 12 clean months. Also pick Embrace if you claim rarely, because the Healthy Pet Deductible drops $50 every claim-free year, and if you want a wellness allowance that even covers grooming and nail trims.
Choose Healthy Paws if
You want the highest possible ceiling. Healthy Paws pays out with no annual limit, has no accident waiting period, and scores 9.3/10 in our rankings. Skip it if you want wellness bundled in or you are enrolling a dog past age 6 and need hip dysplasia covered, because that condition is excluded outright at that age.
Questions
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Written by the WhichPetPlan editorial team. We currently earn no commission from any insurer listed, so no comparison here is paid placement. Scores are our own editorial ratings, not an industry standard. See our methodology for how scores are set.