I think what surprises me is that they wanted to fly the guy half way around the world. Canada and the US border each other.

I DO think that the gentleman made a bad decision saying that he was intent on staying in-country for 6 months afterwards. That's probably all the insurance company needed to think, "Yeah, this guy is using travel insurance as regular insurance"

Still, I do think the gentleman get the wrong end of the stick. I know I won't use this company, but now I really don't know who to use.

my insurance was for 18 months of travel though, so i intended to travel for 18 months. I think that's reasonable. Maybe my wording came out wrong in the post, I wasn't telling them, "no i wont come home" I was telling them I didn't have a return flight pre booked because I was planning on travelling for 6 more months yet.

I'm surprised they would allow you in country for > year without a return flight. I couldn't get even in the EU without showing them I had a way to get out. What sort of visa did you have?

You do mention being a, "digital nomad" which sort of signals to me that you're not into coming back to wherever you started. I don't know the best type of health insurance you should set up for that, but I wouldn't be surprised if traveler insurance companies don't want to be thought of as, "regular health insurance, but for people traveling".

Agreed they shafted you on that.

If the company didn't want to pay for care, they should have offered to fly you back home and back to SE Asia. That is, if it didn't impact your care in a negative way.

They were definitely trying to be cheap.