The two companies, briefly
Pumpkin is a young company, founded in 2020 by a team of pet health experts working alongside Zoetis, the animal health company. Its policies are underwritten by United States Fire Insurance Company (Crum & Forster), and it is sold in all 50 states. It offers one standard accident-and-illness plan, with an optional Preventive Essentials wellness add-on and a separate Wellness Club for routine care.
Lemonade is a tech-driven insurer founded in 2015 and headquartered in New York City, and the first U.S.-based peer-to-peer company to operate as an insurance carrier, according to the NAIC. Its pet insurance is one line among renters, homeowners, car and term life cover, and it offers a multi-policy discount for policyholders who bundle pet insurance with its other policies. It also donates part of its premiums to charity through its Giveback programme.
Both are reimbursement-model insurers, as the site's guide to how pet insurance works explains: you pay the vet, file the claim, and the insurer reimburses a share of the eligible bill after your deductible. The comparison that follows is on cover, waiting periods and limits only as sourced — no prices, no ratings, and no ranking this site cannot evidence. The pet insurance comparison page sets out the wider market.
Coverage: what is in the base plan
Both base plans cover accidents and illnesses, chronic conditions, hereditary conditions, prescription medications, diagnostic services, procedures and hospitalisation. The differences are in the details. Pumpkin's base plan covers dental illness, behavioural issues, alternative therapies, microchipping and vet exam fees, and covers hereditary and congenital conditions including hip dysplasia and heart defects. Lemonade's base plan covers dental accidents — a fractured tooth, for example — but dental illness, such as periodontal disease, gum disease, tooth-root abscesses and oral tumours, needs the dental illness add-on. Lemonade's behavioural conditions and vet visit fees are also add-ons, as are physical therapy and end-of-life cover.
Routine care is an add-on at both companies, but the shape differs. Pumpkin's Preventive Essentials is an optional, non-insurance wellness add-on covering an annual wellness exam, vaccines and a fecal test; its Wellness Club is a standalone product covering routine dental cleaning and spaying or neutering, which cannot be added to a base accident-and-illness policy and must be bought and paid for separately. Lemonade's preventive care packages complement its accident-and-illness cover and can include wellness exams, vaccines, heartworm testing, flea and tick prevention and, in the enhanced packages, dental cleanings — with no deductible and no waiting period.
Neither company covers pre-existing conditions, and both exclude cosmetic or elective procedures and routine care unless an add-on is bought. Pumpkin's one distinctive term is that curable pre-existing conditions can be covered after a 180-day symptom-free period — a condition that has been cured and symptom-free for six months can re-qualify, which most competitors do not offer.
Waiting periods
This is the sharpest difference between the two. Pumpkin has a single 14-day waiting period for everything — accidents, illnesses and ligament or knee conditions all fall under the same 14 days. That is longer than the industry standard for accidents, where two or three days is common, but it is notably shorter than most competitors for orthopedic conditions, where six to twelve months is common: a cruciate ligament tear at Pumpkin is covered after 14 days, where at most other insurers it waits six months.
Lemonade's waiting periods run from two days to six months depending on the condition. Accident cover starts after two days in most states — in some states, at 12:01 a.m. the day after enrolment, with no accident waiting period at all. Illness cover starts after 14 days, orthopedic conditions after 30 days, and cruciate ligament events after six months. The practical consequence is a trade-off: Lemonade covers an accident almost immediately and Pumpkin makes you wait two weeks, but Pumpkin covers a knee injury after two weeks and Lemonade makes you wait six months. Which of those matters more depends on your pet — a young, clumsy dog is an accident risk, and a breed prone to knee problems is a cruciate risk.
Waiting periods can also vary by state. Several states have adopted the NAIC Pet Insurance Model Act, which prohibits accident waiting periods entirely and caps orthopedic waiting periods at 30 days — as of mid-2026 those states include California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington. Check your state's rules, because they can change both companies' waiting periods.
Limits, reimbursement and deductibles
Pumpkin reimburses 90% of eligible vet bills on every plan — there is no lower option, which also means premiums are set at the 90% level. Annual limits for dogs are $10,000, $20,000 or unlimited, and for cats $7,000, $15,000 or unlimited. Deductibles run from $100 to $1,000 a year. Pumpkin also offers PumpkinNow, which pays an eligible emergency claim in real time — up to 90% of the bill in about 15 minutes — so the money is available before you leave the vet, rather than after a reimbursement claim.
Lemonade lets you choose: reimbursement of 70%, 80% or 90% of eligible bills, annual limits of $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 or $100,000, and deductibles from $100 to $500. There is no unlimited option, which matters for a breed prone to catastrophic illness, and the top limit of $100,000 is the ceiling. Choosing 70% reimbursement with a $5,000 limit produces the lowest premium; choosing 90% with a $100,000 limit produces the highest — and the choice is yours to make, not the insurer's.
The honest comparison is therefore between Pumpkin's simplicity and Lemonade's configurability. A buyer who wants the decision made for them will prefer Pumpkin's shape; a buyer who wants to trade a lower reimbursement rate for a lower premium, or who wants preventive care in the same policy, will prefer Lemonade's. Neither is better in the abstract — the right one is the one whose cover matches the pet's risks.
Worked example
Consider two ILLUSTRATIVE dogs. The first is a young Labrador who swallows a sock on day three of the policy: with Lemonade, accident cover has started and the claim is eligible; with Pumpkin, the 14-day wait has not ended and the owner pays. The second is a four-year-old dog of a breed prone to knee problems who tears a cruciate ligament on day twenty: with Pumpkin, the 14-day wait has ended and the claim is eligible; with Lemonade, the six-month cruciate wait has not ended and the owner pays. These are ILLUSTRATIVE contrasts to explain why waiting periods, not premiums, decide which policy fits which pet; they predict no real pet's costs, and no premium figure is asserted for either owner.
Illustrative example only — not a fact about any real policy.