How Long Do You Have to File a Pet Insurance Claim? Fetch's 90 Days, Lemonade's 180 (90 in Texas), Pets Best's 180 and Embrace's Policy Year Plus 60
Most pet insurance plans pay you back after you have already paid the vet, which means the claim is a piece of paperwork with a clock on it. Miss the clock and a covered bill becomes your bill. The clocks are not the same from one insurer to the next: some count from the day of treatment and some count from the end of your policy year. This guide uses the claims pages and policy documents the insurers publish, with the dates they actually produce, so you can see how much time each plan gives you. Figures were checked in October 2026; your own policy wording controls.
Why the deadline matters more than the premium
A late claim is treated as a claim that was never made. Suppose a $1,200 bill, a $250 deductible and 80% reimbursement. The plan would pay $760 on time and $0 late. That illustrative $760 is the amount at risk on one visit, and a chronic condition can put several visits at risk at once. The rules for how that payment is calculated are in our guide to how reimbursement rate and deductible interact.
Fetch: 90 days from treatment
Fetch's help page says to submit claims within 90 days of your pet's treatment and to include both the paid vet invoice and your pet's medical record. A visit on November 20, 2026 therefore has to be filed by February 18, 2027. That is the shortest window among the insurers we could check, and it runs visit by visit, so a series of appointments has a series of deadlines.
Lemonade: 180 days, but 90 in Texas
Lemonade says you must file through its app within 180 days of treatment, and that policies in Texas get 90 days. The same November 20 visit would be due May 19, 2027 in most states and February 18, 2027 in Texas. Lemonade also asks for a medical record from a visit within 12 months of your policy start date before your first claim can be paid, so a new customer who has not sent records should do that first.
Pets Best: 180 days in the policy booklet
The sample policy booklet Pets Best publishes says you must submit a complete claim form and supporting paid invoices within 180 days of the treatment date. Pets Best posts a separate booklet for each state and form, and an older booklet in our search used different wording, with 90 days as the target and 180 days as the outer limit. Open the booklet for your state and policy form, not a summary from a comparison site.
Embrace: the policy year plus 60 days
Embrace works differently. Its claims page says you have your entire policy term plus 60 days after renewal to submit a claim, and its policy language says notice of loss is due within 60 days of the policy end date or renewal. Take a policy year that runs March 1, 2026 to February 28, 2027. Every claim from that year is due by about April 29, 2027. A March 5 visit then has roughly 14 months, while a visit on February 20 has about ten weeks. For this style of plan, the deadline is the end of the year, so the fall and winter visits are the ones that expire first.
What happens when your claim is denied
Embrace's claims page also gives a short window for the next step: you can appeal a claim decision within 14 days of the decision. The appeal normally needs a letter from your veterinarian. The practical details are in our guide to what the internal appeal process looks like, and the same advice applies everywhere: read the denial letter for its own deadline the day it arrives.
Plans we could not confirm
Several large insurers, including Trupanion and Healthy Paws, did not let our checks read their claims pages, and the numbers quoted on comparison sites disagree with each other. We left them out instead of guessing. If you hold one of those plans, find the claim-filing section of your policy and write the date into your calendar.
A simple routine that avoids missing the date
File the same week as the visit, while the invoice and records are fresh. Photograph the paid invoice at the front desk. Ask the clinic to email the medical record along with the receipt, because some plans want both. If a bill is large, check whether the exam fee is covered before you file, since a plan that excludes it will pay on a smaller number. And if you are still inside the first days of a new policy, our guide to the free look and cancellation window explains the other deadline you may be racing.
This guide covers insurance costs and paperwork only. It is not veterinary advice or legal advice, and it does not replace your policy. Claim windows vary by insurer, state and policy form and can change at renewal.
All content is fact-checked under our editorial standards.