From a European perspective, this comment confuses me. This is why you take out the policy when you adopt the animal... so they're covered from the start? Insurance isn't really something to take out when you've got a problem, that's why those clauses are in there. Christmas is a time a lot of families get pets and it's really worth it to make sure they can get good care and to make sure you don't have to lay out an unexpectedly big amount should the pet have any kind of medical emergency?

Considering the amount pet insurance is here per month (~$20 maybe for a small/medium sized dog?) it's really a no-brainer, but then our human insurance for private medical / national healthcare systems also work the same way and with the same scale of benefits. most jobs at larger companies offer private medical cover right off the bat and up to a very generous amount of coverage like $40,000 for heart stuff, up to $20,000 for ongoing medication etc, numbers aren't exact but you get the idea and bear in mind in Europe the treatments themselves are vastly cheaper and... it really makes no sense how they've got America to agree this was OK and now everyone is super skeptical of insurance because of how bad medical is.

What your medical insurance companies do is unprecedented and the bills that people are left with after insurance comp is literally unheard of outside the US, even for procedures that require a co-payment in other healthcare systems.