Pets

Lemonade Pet Insurance Review (2026): Policy Options & What’s Covered

by Kyle BurbankFeb 4, 2026

Updated on February 4, 2026

Pets have always been an important part of many American families. Yet, I don’t think I’d ever really considered the idea of purchasing insurance for a dog or cat until I learned that Lemonade was adding it as an option. Cut to a mere month after when my wife and I added a dog (we named her Rigby) to our family, giving me a chance to take a closer look at what Lemonade’s pet insurance is all about. In fact, after going through the process of getting a quote, we ended up purchasing a policy for ourselves.

So, how does Lemonade’s pet insurance work and what has my experience been like so far? Let’s get into what you need to know about their policies along with my thoughts.

Lemonade Pet Insurance Review

Lemonade Pet Insurance: An Affordable and Customizable Coverage Option

Get a Quote

4.5/5

Eligible pets

Cats and Dogs

Discounts available

10% bundle discount, 5% multi-pet discount, 5% annual plan discount

Waiting periods

2 days for accidents, 14 days for illnesses, 6 months for cruciate ligament events

Lemonade makes it easy to obtain a pet insurance quote and explore coverage options. Plus, those with other Lemonade policies (including renters insurance, life insurance, and more) can save 10% by bundling. Other discounts include a 5% multi-pet discount and a 5% discount when you pay for a year of your policy upfront.

As for downsides, even with top-tier coverage, Lemonade policies only cover up to 90% of expenses (not including deductibles). Additionally, while waiting periods are largely reasonable, the wait period for cruciate ligament events is six months.

Pros

Adjustable coverage plans
Discounts for multiple pets or bundling with other Lemonade policies
Reasonable wait times

Cons

Maximum plan option still only pays 90%
Wait times do still apply
Adding all available options can make policies pricey

What is Lemonade Pet Insurance and How Does it Work?

What is Lemonade?

Lemonade is an insurer that aims to make the process of buying coverage easier. Initially, the company started this endeavor by offering renters insurance but has since expanded into other coverage options — including pet insurance. Currently (as of February 2026) Lemonade pet insurance is available in: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin

The Basics of Lemonade Pet Insurance

Before we get into the specifics about what Lemonade pet insurance covers and what coverage options they offer, let me address some basics. First, with your policy, you’ll be able to take your pet to any licensed vet in the United States. Next, it’s important to know that preexisting conditions are not covered by any of Lemonade’s policy options. Lastly, should you wish to cancel your policy, you are able to do so at any time.

Of course, there’s a lot more to Lemonade’s coverage than those three things, so let’s dive deeper.

Requesting a Quote

To get started with a quote, you’ll need to complete a questionnaire. I see this part of the process as being broken into two segments, starting with the basics:

The type of pet (dog or cat)
Age
Boy or girl
Breed (if generic “mixed breed” is selected, you’ll also choose a size)
Length of time you’ve had your pet

After this, you may need to answer a few questions about your pet’s health and history. These include disclosing any:

Head issues
Tummy issues
Leg issues
Parasites
Chronic issues

Of note, when I first applied for Lemonade pet health insurance, those pet health history questions were part of the process. However, in revisiting the application (just as a trial), they were not present. Therefore. I’m unclear on whether this is still standard or whether certain situations might trigger it.

Once you’ve submitted this information, you’ll be able to see your base coverage quote while also going through the additional coverage options.

Base Plan Coverage

As you’ll be informed when finishing up your quote, the base plan covers three main things: diagnostics, procedures, and medications. Examples of diagnostics include blood tests, urinalysis, x-rays, MRIs, labwork, CT scans, and ultrasounds. As for procedures, this may include outpatient procedures, specialty and emergency care, hospitalization, and/or surgery. And medications are, well, medications.

In addition to these core coverages, Lemonade offers several other options.

Extended Accident & Illness Coverage

The first of the additional coverage options you’ll find falls under the “Extended Accident & Illness” banner. One option you’ll have here is to add vet visit fee coverage. With this, Lemonade will pay for visits you make to the vet for pet accidents and illnesses. This includes vet exams, vet check-ups, physical consultations, office visits, and emergency room visits. However, this option still does not cover visits related to pre-existing conditions nor those made for preventative care.

Another option in the section is physical therapy coverage. Should your pet need physical therapy due to illness or injury, this coverage will apply. Examples here include acupuncture, chiropractic care, cryotherapy, electro-acupuncture, gait training, heat therapy, hydrotherapy, joint mobilization, laser therapy, and therapeutic exercises. But, once again, preventative physical therapy or treatment for pre-existing conditions is not covered.

Preventative Care

On top of the base plan and aforementioned add-ons, Lemonade also offers preventive packages. These include plans for adult dogs/cats as well as plans tailored to puppies/kittens.

As an example of what some of these packages cover, the Routine Vet Care plan includes:

The Base Plan
1 wellness exam
1 fecal or internal parasite test
3 vaccines
1 heartworm of FeLV/FIV test
1 blood test
Routine dental cleaning
Flea/tick or heartworm medication

Note that each of these items have an annual cap amount. Furthermore, that amount will depend on the percentage option you choose (more on that in a moment). However, the items covered in your preventative package do not have a deductible.

Speaking of annual caps, there’s also the Routine Vet Care Plus option, which features higher limits. It also adds coverage for “Life Essentials.” Examples here include heartworm/flea/tick, deworming, nail trim, urinalysis, gastropexy, joint and organ screening, blood glucose, blood pressure, genetic testing, preventative x-rays, and ultrasounds.

Other Add-Ons

As I’ve gone through the process of updating this review from time to time, I’ve noticed a few updates and changes. These are mostly small nomenclature tweaks but, a couple of years ago, I did notice some additional coverage options. These include:

Dental Illness (Covers treatments such as gum disease and tooth extractions. Up to $1,000 a year)
Behavioral Conditions (Covers diagnoses, therapy sessions, and meds for new behavioral conditions. Up to $1,000 a year)
End of Life and Remembrance (Covers euthanasia, cremation, and a special memorial item. No deductible. Up to $500 a year.)

Customizing Your Policy

Once you’ve selected all of your other coverage options, it’s time to customize your policy and adjust your terms. First, you can select what percentage of the bill you’d want Lemonade to pay. Your choices here are 60%, 70%, 80%, or 90%. As you can imagine, the higher the percentage, the more you’ll pay on your premium.

Next, it’s time to choose a deductible — which is the cumulative amount deducted from your claims over the course of a year. Here, your options are $100, $250, $500, or $750. In this case, the smaller the deductible you choose, the more it adds to your premium price.

Lastly, you’ll also select the yearly maximum amount that Lemonade will pay. The options here are $5,000; $10,000; $20,000; $50,000; or $100,000. Your premium may go higher if you choose a larger maximum here.

For what it’s worth, from what I can tell, the base quote defaults to the middle options. So 80% pay, $250 deductible, and $20,000 yearly max.

Waiting Periods

Now that you’re getting ready to purchase your policies, it’s time to talk about waiting periods. In short, your Lemonade pet coverage won’t kick in immediately, with different coverages becoming available in different stages. For accidents, the waiting period is 2 days — meaning that, should your pet be injured more than two days after you purchased your policy, you’re covered. Meanwhile, the waiting period for illnesses is 14 days and the waiting period for cruciate ligament events is 6 months.

Discounts

Now that we’ve gone through what types of coverage options Lemonade offers, let’s talk about how you can save money. One fairly easy way to save on your policy is to pay for a year of coverage upfront instead of paying monthly. If you do this, you’ll save 5%.

Meanwhile, if you have more than one pet, you can score a multi-pet discount when you cover them. Similarly, those who bundle Lemonade pet insurance with other Lemonade policies can also save.

My Experience Purchasing Lemonade Pet Insurance

Obtaining My Quote

Since I already had a Lemonade account, it was quite easy to move forward with getting a policy quote. I hope I didn’t make the application process sound daunting at all because it really took about five minutes. In fact, the bulk of the time I spent on purchasing my policy was looking over all of the options and making a decision.

Funny enough, when I first started looking at options, we didn’t actually have a pet just yet. Thus, I had to just make stuff up to get a ballpark idea of how much coverage costs. Of course, once we did get Rigby, I was able to go back and edit my answers appropriately.

What I Purchased

After looking at all of my options, we eventually landed on a fairly simple policy. Specifically, we went with the base coverage but added Vet Visit Fee coverage. We also adjusted the policy coverage to 90% while also upping the deductible to $500 — yet, left the Annual Limit at $20,000.

As for the payment plan, we opted for the annual payment, which entitled us to a discount. So, in total, we paid $228 for the year initially. In 2023, we renewed our policy at a cost of $254.29 for the year, while in 2024, the policy price increased to $274.62 for the year. Most recently, we renewed in 2025 at a cost of $332.25.

After Purchasing My Policy

With my policy selected, I went ahead and purchased it. When I did, I was then asked to upload our dog’s vet records. In the event that I didn’t have them, Lemonade’s interface told me I could also provide them with the name and phone number of her vet and they’d obtain them that way.

Luckily, seeing ahead, I already had a vet appointment scheduled for Rigby and so I was able to send over the report afterward. In this case, all I needed to do was upload a PDF and that was it.

Claims

One of the downsides of trying to review an insurance policy is that I can’t really get into the process of filing a claim without actually doing so. However, after nearly two years of having the policy, we did file our first pet insurance claim for Rigby back in July.

The day after Independence Day, we took Rigby to a local vet as she had been sick to her stomach since that morning. After running some tests, the veterinary clinic sent us home with some medicines to give her, as well as some special food she could have in the meantime.

Almost immediately after we returned home, I started filing my claim in the Lemonade app via what is essentially a chatbot. This interface walked me through the process, which included providing details about the vet, the total cost, and a breakdown of each expense on the invoice. I also had to record a voice note detailing what was wrong with Rigby and what happened at the vet. They also asked if the vet had provided me any additional notes, but they ended up getting them from the practice themselves a day or two later.

In all, it only took three business days (with a weekend in between) for my claim to be approved — and another two business days for my funds to fully clear. Of course, with my $500 deductible and 90% coinsurance selection, my payout from the $600+ vet bill claim was $74. That’s not a complaint, though, as things could have definitely been a lot worse had those initial tests come back differently!

More recently, Rigby needed to have a mass removed from her leg. To my surprise, after submitting my claim, it was approved within a few hours! This was incredibly impressive to me and made the service even easier to recommend. Yet, it got even better as, when she unfortunately broke one of her sutures and had to go to the emergency vet to get fixed up, my claim was instantly improved.

A few months later, we noticed another small mass on Rigby’s leg, which we were also able to have removed during the same policy year. You’ll be happy to know that she didn’t bust her sutures this time and healed well. Plus, the majority of the cost was once again covered. Thankfully, it’s been several months since and we haven’t seen any other masses develop, so hopefully that’s the end of it.Overall, the Lemonade claims process proved to be just about as easy as the sign-up process. By the way, this is the short version of my Lemonade pet insurance claim experience, so be sure to check out my full article for a more in-depth walkthrough.

Final Thoughts on Lemonade Pet Insurance

Having previously explored Lemonade and even purchased a term life insurance policy from them, it was an easy place to start when looking to cover my dog, Rigby. While the coverage I purchased wasn’t the absolute cheapest option I could get, I was more comfortable with the level of coverage I got with Lemonade than some of the competitors I checked out. Additionally, I appreciated how easy Lemonade makes it to explore different coverage options and instantly see how these customizations impact your premium.

Now that I’ve also had to make a claim with Lemonade, I can also speak to how simple this process was. More importantly, though, being able to walk into the vet without worrying as much about the cost of care for Rigby was invaluable.

All in all, I’ve been pleased with our coverage. Plus, while the renewals have brought higher premiums, they’ve been relatively modest increases, climbing around $30 per year for the first three years. That said, the most recent increase was double that — but followed a year where we had over $1,000 reimbursed by our policy.

Based on my experience, I’d recommend that pet owners seeking coverage for their dog or cat at least check out Lemonade and see what they have to offer. Personally, it’s worked well for us and given us greater peace of mind when it comes to our favorite pup.

Per FTC guidelines, this website may be compensated by companies mentioned through advertising, affiliate programs or otherwise. (Note: advertising relationships do not have any influence on editorial content. Advertising compensation allows Money@30 to provide quality content for free. All editorial opinions are those of Kyle Burbank.)

Author

Kyle Burbank

Founder ~ Moneyat30

Kyle is a freelance writer - including being the head writer for Fioney.com. He also serves as editorial director for the Disney fan site LaughingPlace.com and the founder of Money@30.com. In 2015, Kyle and his wife Bekah moved from Los Angeles to Springfield MO in pursuit of greater financial freedom. Together, the pair enjoy travel, coffee, and spending time with their dog Rigby. Additionally, as of 2023, they become first-time homeowners.