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Pet insurance is a financial product, not a medical one — this article compares publicly available plan terms and pricing to help you narrow your options, but it isn’t personalized financial advice. Always confirm current rates, exclusions, and your pet’s specific eligibility directly with the provider before enrolling.
If you’re comparing pet insurance providers in 2026, the honest answer is that no single company wins on every measure. Quick verdict: Trupanion is the strongest pick if you want a flat 90% reimbursement and no payout caps and don’t mind a higher premium; Embrace is the best value for owners who want flexible reimbursement tiers at a genuinely low starting cost; Healthy Paws keeps things simple with unlimited annual payouts and a straightforward claims process; and Fetch is worth a look if you want accident coverage to kick in with no waiting period at all. The right pick depends less on brand reputation and more on what happens to your wallet after your dog or cat actually gets sick.
The pick, at a glance
- Best overall: Trupanion — fixed 90% reimbursement and no per-incident or annual payout limit, so a single catastrophic claim doesn’t run into a ceiling.
- Best value: Embrace — the lowest reported starting premiums of the four, with reimbursement tiers up to 90% and coverage for hereditary conditions, dental illness, and behavioral therapy.
- Best for simplicity: Healthy Paws — unlimited annual payouts, a single consistent deductible structure, and no confusing per-condition math.
- Best for fast accident coverage: Fetch — a 0-day waiting period on accidents, versus 14-15 days at the others.
- Skip if: you want routine wellness coverage bundled in by default — all four treat it as a separate add-on or exclude it outright.
Trupanion, Healthy Paws, Embrace, and Fetch side by side
| Provider | Reported monthly premium | Reimbursement | Deductible | Payout cap | Illness waiting period |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trupanion | $168–$886 (dog), $55–$275 (cat), per NerdWallet’s sample quote | Fixed 90% — no tiers | Per-condition, $0–$1,000, met once per condition for life | None — unlimited | Varies by state; not broken out by NerdWallet’s review |
| Healthy Paws | Avg. $62 (dog), $32 (cat), per Forbes Advisor | 50%, 60%, 70%, or 80% — tops out at 80% | Annual, $250–$1,000 | None — unlimited | 15 days (hip dysplasia: 12 months, or excluded if enrolled at 6+) |
| Embrace | $39–$146 (dog), $19–$46 (cat), per NerdWallet | 70%, 80%, or 90% | Annual, $100–$1,000 | $2,000/yr up to unlimited | 14 days (orthopedic: 180 days, reducible with a vet exam) |
| Fetch | $34–$91 (dog), depending on source — see note below | 70%, 80%, or 90% | Annual, $300–$700 online, up to $2,500 by phone | $2,500–$15,000/yr or unlimited by phone | 0 days accidents, 15 days illness (hip/knee: 6 months, waivable with exam) |
One data point needs a caveat before you go further: Forbes Advisor and NerdWallet published noticeably different sample premiums for Fetch — Forbes’ quote averaged $91/month for a dog at a $15,000 annual limit, while NerdWallet’s separate sample quote averaged $34/month. Neither number is wrong; they reflect different sample pets, ages, and coverage levels used by each publication. Treat any single quoted premium — from any provider — as a starting point, not a promise, and get a quote for your actual pet before comparing final numbers.
Trupanion: no caps, no tiers, one flat number
Trupanion’s entire pitch is simplicity at the payout end: every plan reimburses 90% of the vet bill, full stop, with no lower tiers to accidentally pick. There’s also no per-incident or lifetime dollar cap, according to NerdWallet’s review, which matters most for owners of breeds prone to expensive chronic conditions. The deductible works differently here than at the other three providers — it’s per-condition rather than annual, but once you’ve met it for a specific diagnosis, that condition is covered without another deductible for the rest of your pet’s life.
The trade-offs: exam fees aren’t covered, behavioral and wellness care are excluded, and alternative therapies like acupuncture or physical therapy require an added “Recovery and Complementary Care” rider rather than coming standard. Forbes Advisor also flags that Trupanion’s mobile app “gets very poor user reviews,” which is worth knowing since claims and account management run through it. On the plus side, NerdWallet reports Trupanion processes more than 70% of claims within 24 hours — among the fastest claims turnaround reported for any provider in this comparison.
Trupanion is the strongest fit for owners who want the highest reimbursement percentage available and zero payout ceiling, and who are willing to pay a premium that can run meaningfully higher than the other three, according to the sample quotes above.
Healthy Paws: unlimited payouts without the complexity
Healthy Paws pairs unlimited annual payouts with a more familiar annual-deductible structure, which makes the math easier to predict than Trupanion’s per-condition model. Reimbursement tops out at 80% rather than 90%, and hereditary and congenital conditions — including things like cherry eye and IVDD — are covered, along with dental illness and alternative therapy. Behavioral training and routine exam fees are not covered, per Forbes Advisor’s review.
The one condition-specific catch worth flagging for dog owners: hip dysplasia carries its own 12-month waiting period, and Healthy Paws excludes it outright if you enroll a dog that’s already 6 years or older. If your dog is a large breed prone to hip issues, enrolling earlier rather than later meaningfully changes what’s covered.
Healthy Paws is the pick for owners who want unlimited payouts without Trupanion’s per-condition deductible bookkeeping, and who are comfortable with an 80% reimbursement ceiling instead of 90%.
Embrace: the widest tier flexibility at the lowest reported entry price
Embrace lets you choose your own reimbursement rate — 70%, 80%, or 90% — paired with a deductible anywhere from $100 to $1,000, which means you can tune the monthly premium up or down more precisely than with the other three. Per NerdWallet’s sample quotes, Embrace’s starting premiums were the lowest of the four providers compared here. Coverage includes hereditary and congenital conditions, dental illness up to $1,000 a year, and behavioral therapy, with exam fees available as an optional paid add-on rather than bundled in.
Embrace also announced in a December 2025 press release that it had surpassed $1 billion in cumulative claims paid since its 2003 launch and earned J.D. Power certification for “Outstanding Customer Service Experience for Phone Support” — one of the only named third-party service certifications any of these four providers has publicly cited. That said, NerdWallet’s review notes mixed sentiment in owner discussions, with recurring complaints about claim denials and renewal-rate increases alongside positive claims experiences; claims are typically processed in 10 to 15 business days.
Embrace fits owners who want to dial in their own reimbursement-versus-premium trade-off rather than accept a fixed structure, and who are comfortable that renewal pricing may rise over time, as the NerdWallet review suggests it can.
Fetch: the only one with zero-day accident coverage
Fetch — the rebranded successor to Petplan, which switched names in March 2022 per Insurance Business Magazine — is the only provider here with no waiting period at all for accidents; coverage starts the day your policy does. Illness coverage carries a 15-day wait, in line with Healthy Paws and close to Embrace’s 14 days. Fetch also covers hereditary and congenital conditions by breed, dental accidents and disease, behavioral therapy, and alternative or rehab treatment, with exam fees included in the base accident/illness plan rather than sold separately.
As noted above, published premium estimates for Fetch vary widely by source, which is unusual even accounting for normal pet-profile differences — worth getting your own quote rather than anchoring to either published figure. Claims are typically processed in about 15 days, per NerdWallet, and direct deposit reimbursement arrives roughly 5 to 10 days faster than a mailed check.
Fetch is worth a close look if you specifically want same-day accident protection — useful if you’re enrolling a new puppy or a dog that already has an active lifestyle — and you’re willing to shop the quote carefully given the premium discrepancy noted above.
What a real claim actually costs you: a modeled 3-year scenario
Reimbursement percentages and deductibles are easy to compare side by side, but they don’t tell you what you’d actually pay out of pocket after a real vet bill. So we built a simple model: assume a dog is enrolled for three years, has no other claims, and then needs a $3,000 surgery (a torn ACL repair is a common example in this price range) in year two. We used each provider’s lower reported monthly premium from the table above, its stated deductible, and its stated reimbursement percentage to calculate total 3-year cost — premiums paid plus out-of-pocket surgery cost after reimbursement.
| Provider | Premium used (36 mo.) | Deductible used | Reimbursement used | Total 3-year cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trupanion | $6,048 (at $168/mo) | $250 | 90% | ~$6,573 |
| Healthy Paws | $2,232 (at $62/mo avg.) | $250 | 80% | ~$3,032 |
| Embrace | $1,404 (at $39/mo) | $250 | 80% | ~$2,204 |
| Fetch | $1,224 (at $34/mo, NerdWallet figure) | $300 | 80% | ~$2,064 |
This is a modeled estimate built from the publicly reported figures cited above, not a guarantee of what you’ll pay — actual premiums shift significantly by breed, age, and ZIP code, and Trupanion’s own sample quote spans as high as $886/month for higher-risk profiles, which would push its 3-year total dramatically higher than shown here. What the model does illustrate clearly: a high reimbursement percentage on paper (Trupanion’s 90%) can still net out to a higher total cost than a lower-premium plan with a slightly lower reimbursement rate, once you add up what you pay in premiums whether or not your pet ever gets sick.
How we compared
We built this comparison from each provider’s own published policy terms plus independent reviews and sample quotes from NerdWallet and Forbes Advisor, cross-checked against company press releases for claims-paid and certification data. We did not enroll a pet with any of these providers ourselves. Where sources disagreed — as with Fetch’s premium estimates — we reported both figures rather than picking one, and we built the 3-year cost model transparently so you can substitute your own premium quote into the same math. This piece follows the same approach as the rest of our Pets comparisons, including our dog GPS tracker comparison. Read more about how we research and rate on our editorial standards page. Prices are approximate, current as of publication, and change frequently — confirm the latest price with the retailer before buying.
Frequently asked questions
Which pet insurance company has the highest reimbursement rate?
Trupanion is the only one of these four with a flat 90% reimbursement on every plan — the others offer 90% only as their top optional tier, with lower default rates available at a reduced premium.
Do any of these providers cover pre-existing conditions?
None of the four cover pre-existing conditions, which is standard across the pet insurance industry — coverage only applies to conditions that first appear after enrollment and any applicable waiting period.
Is there a pet insurance provider with no payout limit at all?
Trupanion and Healthy Paws both advertise unlimited annual and lifetime payouts. Embrace and Fetch offer unlimited coverage as an option but default to a stated dollar cap unless you select the unlimited tier.
How long do I have to wait before coverage starts?
Fetch is the fastest for accidents, with no waiting period at all. Illness waiting periods run 14 to 15 days across all four providers, and breed-specific conditions like hip dysplasia or orthopedic issues typically carry a much longer wait — six months to a year — at every provider that covers them.
Does pet insurance cover routine checkups and vaccines?
Not by default at any of the four. Wellness and routine care are either excluded entirely or available only as a separate paid add-on, since these plans are built around unexpected accident and illness costs rather than predictable annual expenses.
Bottom line
Choose Trupanion if you want the highest flat reimbursement and no payout ceiling and don’t mind paying more for it. Choose Embrace if you want to tune your own premium-versus-reimbursement trade-off at what NerdWallet reported as the lowest starting cost of the four. Choose Healthy Paws if unlimited payouts matter to you but you’d rather have a simple annual deductible than Trupanion’s per-condition math. And choose Fetch if same-day accident coverage is the deciding factor — just get an actual quote first, since published premium estimates for Fetch vary more than for any other provider here.
