I am sorry to be a bit blunt here... but the insurance company isn't trying to "wrangle their way out of paying" your claim! You cancelled your old policy, then set up a new policy. There isn't a single pet insurance that will take on pre-existing conditions; so you were extremely lucky that they decided to pay and that is really just out of goodwill, as they didn't have to! It is in this particular case really not the insurance's fault - with perhaps the exception that they should have advised you of it when you asked whether you should take out a new policy... but even that wasn't even their responsibility.