Lemonade Insurance Company — Local services in New York

I write this more out of sadness than anger. I was a Lemonade customer for 5 years, and I really believed in their business model, but it has become too painfully obvious to me that they are failing, at least on the homeowners insurance side, I haven't tried any of their other insurance products. I am a huge fan of their innovative core selling point, where excess cash reserves go to charity instead of company profits to encourage fast, easy insurance payouts. Unfortunately, my experience just proves that good ideas are worthless without good execution.

I submitted two claims to Lemonade, the first being some water damage caused by a previously invisible construction flaw in the roof, and the second being hail damage to the shingles. My roof is on the older side, around 15 years old, but I get it inspected by a roofer twice a year and ensure it stays in good condition. The first claim experience was pretty bad, their communication was slow and lacking in real understanding of the situation, and they tried to low-ball me a ridiculous amount on the payout even though I sent them the actual receipts from the repairmen who fixed it and provided ample evidence that the costs were highly in-line with what other companies would charge for the same repairs. But eventually, after several weeks of waiting on them to hem and haw about it, they finally covered the repair costs so I chalked it up to a fluke and moved on. Turns out that was a big mistake.

My latest hail damage claim has been a nightmare, a storm came through that created clear, obvious damage to my roof shingles, and my roofer sent several pictures to them with unmistakable evidence of the damage. The communication from Lemonade was even worse than it was before, I spent weeks and weeks on the same pattern: I would contact them, then wait 1-2 weeks getting no reply whatsoever, leaving voicemails and sending emails every few days, then finally they would get back to me asking for some follow up information. I would respond immediately, providing the information within a few hours of them asking for it, and then the cycle would repeat, waiting through 1-2 weeks of complete radio silence while I tried to get some kind of response from someone with no luck. After several weeks of this, we finally got back the absurd conclusion that the hail damage to my roof was just "normal mechanical damage, regular wear and tear" for a roof my age. We thought this must have been some kind of mistake so we appealed the conclusion, which of course meant several more weeks of painfully slow communication back and forth with them before they finally sent the inspector back out again, then several more weeks while they "evaluated the evidence"... then said the same thing, that it wasn't real hail damage.

At this point I'm just cutting my losses and moving on, it is an expensive learning experience but it's not worth my time to try to sue them or something. I am just going to leave negative reviews for them on every website I can find in hopes of saving another starry-eyed person like me who is blinded by Lemonade's idealistic business model from being screwed by them. In theory, Lemonade is the perfect insurance company for me, I'm perfectly willing to pay higher-than-standard rates to get fast, hassle-free payouts when things go wrong, but paying higher-than-standard rates to get the worst experience I've ever had with any insurance company in my life is just sad. I don't even think they're deliberately committing fraud, I believe that their problem is likely incompetence rather than malice, but the harm done to consumers is about the...

08.31.25 Our daughter had Lemonade Renter's Insurance policy (required by landlord) for several years now at $5/month. She recently had a water leak in her bathroom caused by her upstairs neighbor so had to relocate in order for landlord's vendors to do construction in the bathroom for 2 weeks.

Lemonade covered the Loss of Use hotel & daily meals expenses for the entire duration. Filed notification of claim, AI Bot replied but an actual agent was assigned the next day and she was the one our daughter email corresponded with. She did ask for a lot of details and photos of the water leak, which her landlord (cc'ed) was great in responding immediately back to them with.

She also didn't have to file for any Personal Property Loss, which the agent REPEATEDLY asked her about. This may be why her claim was so easily approved and concluded.

Upon returning back to the apartment, filed the Loss of Use claim including all expenses with receipt pics attached via email. Was funded 100% to bank account within 5 days.

Btw, our daughter chose a very moderate fee hotel to stay in (3 star hotel in a great location), having used an online coupon discount for it, and all her meals were purchased basically from Wholefoods so only 1 restaurant meal during the entire time. They also didn't require our daughter to pay any deductible so she didn't have any out of pocket expenses as her landlord not only paid her rent per diem reimbursement but they also reimbursed for what we all thought was going to be her out of pocket deductible.

But reading over the reviews here on Google, I would NEVER purchase from Lemonade any of the following insurance; -Pet (automatic pre-existing condition denials, just no)

-Homeowners (aging roof, tree too close to roof, old water heater denials, jacked up premiums, cancellations without notice, hail damage being deemed "natural aging" , all just WHAT???)

-Auto (denial of coverage, high deductible, low compensation value, heck no)

-Health/Medical (why would anyone trust health insurance with any boutique company vs a well known nationwide established carrier? NO...

I would not ever recommend this company to anyone. They seem to run the scheme of get you in the door at a low rate then 1st year jump rebuilds up 100,000 with no explanation other than rates went up in your area when they haven't at all. When I contacted multiple insurance companies, they all said the same that they are not sure how they are getting this number unless I live in a very high-risk area. I do not, I live in the plains of Indiana we never get any crazy weather here. Felt this was off the mark so said I didn't agree with this at all then they let me pay in full for the next year policy only to then send me a letter in the mail stating there was a streak on the roof, so they know the roof needs replaced. Need I mind you this picture is from the inspection they make you do every year in which they told me passed. This streak they are referring to is now no longer on the roof. They could have sent an inspector because I know there isn't anything wrong with this roof. They only did this because I pushed back on the rate increase and called them out on it with facts. Overall terrible experience only good thing is you will get a good rate for 1 year. Just be prepared to take it up the a## on the second year and every year after the way it was worded to me. Avoid these dudes at all costs would be my advice. Oh, they also make you do home inspections every year not a true home inspection though they make you just snap photos then their inspection experts can stare at photos and can tell if things are not right. Don't know I have never seen anyone perform home inspections this way, but home inspection every year is insane. They are only doing this 1 time a year on purpose they are trying to locate problems before you get to file a claim so they can deny your policy is the only reason this would be happening as frequent as it is pretty shady business practices. Now I can't get a response about my refund from anyone at the company yet, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt on this and maybe the checks already in the mail. Stay as far away from this...