yeah, i'd rather pay 50 bucks than a grand, but I certainly don't see how paying for the vet care i use 4-5 times in the course of a year for the life of an animal makes any sense either. Even when I take out a mortgage i'm not paying that much above what i'm getting and I get to live in a house at least.
I spent over $6k in vet bills over about a year & a half on her 2 TTA's plus rehab after both. I was always one of those "I'll just put away what I'd spend on insurance in an account each month".. even if I was putting away $100/month, that's only $1200/year, not even close to covering her surgeries, etc. So yeah, it'd be kind of annoying (not that you WANT to have to utilize the insurance) to drop $40-50/month on insurance and never use it. But for me, after having spent what I did, it's well worth the peace of mind.
Anyway, back to companies and such.
I'm looking into getting it for my boys, both of whom have no pre existing conditions. We met with Trupanion, Pets Best & VPI where I work and we liked Pets Best the best. VPI has all of these weird payment schedules, and Trupanion does a per incident deductible (ex. You pay a $200 deductible for a TTA surgery, then your dog eats something it shouldn't, you have to pay another $200 deductible for that surgery). Pets Best is straightforward, they cover 70, 80 or 90%, and you pick the deductible.
Embrace Pet Insurance is another good one, they're similar to Pets Best. Pet Plan is the one that I will more than likely go with though. I started working for a new clinic and they're offering a 20% discount off of your premium. They also cover hereditary conditions, which is a nice one that many companies don't. Only negative is that they're structured somewhat similar to Trupanion with the per incident deductible, which is annoying to me. Other than that, they sound like a great company.