Embrace | Pet Insurance Review

We purchased a wonderful Boxer and rescued a sweet Pit Bull from our local shelter. The Pit has had no health issues but little Boxer girl has and with the exception of some preexisting issues (wish we had gotten insurance the day we brought her home) the Embrace insurance helped so very much. We did not get a policy with meds included which is a major cost and with a purebreed puppy that would have been a good idea for us during her first year.

This is the 1st time that I have had pet insurance for 1 of our pets.. we have had alot of animals in the pass but never purchased insurance for them before. We had a Dobe that was our million dollar dog..and well worth every penny of it, but he had all kinds of health issues and no pet insurance. So we decided all pets would have pet insurance coverage from that point on. So far it has been a good experience with Embrace..

petunia, my boston terrier, has skin disease. it is being treated with atopica, antihistimines & allerderm. she has lost about half her body fur, so i call her my "boston crested". embrace has been outstanding in their claim handling, and also i get the occasional email asking how petunia is, which i doubt no other pet insurance would do. frankly, it is that personal touch that keeps me recommending embrace to other pet owners. they are the #1 pet insurance referral from my vet. petunia is getting better, and for that i am most thankful.

Unlike the VPI Pet Insurance policy, the primary Embrace policy covers relatively little. Despite having well over $1000 in vet bills since that time, the Embrace accident/injury policy has covered nothing (whereas the generic VPI policy would have). Do not be fooled into thinking that you will be able to add a wellness benefit later; they will not let you during the course of an insurance term. I chose Embrace in part because I expected that the extra cost would be worth what I perceived to be superior customer service. I was wrong about that. To make matters worse, I have had to wait for nearly a month to receive a decision on my claim. I had to call them in order to get a response. I would only recommend Embrace if you are absolutely sure that you want nothing other than accident coverage. I sincerely wish I had chosen VPI insurance as my vet originally recommended.

I was an Embrace customer for almost two years, and was happy the first year and the first time I had to make a claim, they paid promptly. This year (my second year) they sent an email to all customers with policy changes. These changes basically eliminate coverage for anything that Embrace considers "preventable" or that there is a vaccine for, and it goes on to say that even if your dog has been vaccinated, if they contract an illness, you must seek damages from the manufacturer, not Embrace! Here is their quote: “Example: If a pet is vaccinated against Parvo, but still contracts Parvo, the vaccine manufacturer is at fault and may be liable for the veterinary costs to treat the Parvo.” Good luck making any claim for any illness with that type of policy. The icing on the cake was when my dog recently had a UTI. I filed a claim and Embrace requested my dog’s medical history going back three years before they can process the claim, I can only assume that they did this so that they can investigate whether or not they could wiggle their way out of paying the medical costs. After I had been a customer for almost two years, they randomly sent me an email that they will not cover foreign body ingestion for my dog because he previously was treated for a foreign body ingestion two years ago! So, they eliminated any “preventable” illnesses, accidents, vaccinated related conditions, and now foreign body ingestion. What the heck is left besides being run over by a car