It is for unexpected pet health care costs. Your pet attacking someone would be covered under homeowners or a personal liability umbrella.

I've never made a renter's insurance claim.

Pet insurance is only for emergency and/or life-threatening injuries and conditions, and surgeries and other costs related to them. Think getting hit by a car or getting cancer. It doesn't cover vaccinations, annual visits, and tests done for preventative measures. This is the main difference between pet insurance and US human health insurance since if I understand correctly, most (all?) medical plans offered in the US are required to provide preventative coverage for annual visits, vaccinations, etc.

My pets are young and healthy so 100% of their medical costs are preventative which made me consider cancelling my policy. For reference I pay $65/mo for my policy which covers three pets. In my area an annual exam and vaccination series for the three pets costs $300 so about 2/3rds of my annual pet medical expenses is "wasted" on premiums. But a minor accident that could happen to any pet ended up costing more than a year's worth of premiums and it was nearly 100% covered by insurance without a deductible applying.

I've still paid more in premiums than I've gotten back (which is obvious; how else does the insurance make a profit?). I was considering self-insuring instead by taking the money I was spending on premiums and putting it into a savings account. After doing some research on emergency procedures I realized that in some rare circumstances a single injury could cost a decade of premiums. If this happened multiple times I'd have to make a tough decision to put down the pet simply because I couldn't afford the procedure. These pets didn't ask to be brought into this world and are often abused and neglected before becoming adopted. They deserve a long and healthy life if one is possible. I'd rather "waste" a few hundred dollars a year for the peace of mind that I can afford to treat any illness or injury that occurs.

10x is right. We didn’t have pet insurance. My dog got hit by a car in September. Everything is good now, but the incident broke his leg and popped his eye out of socket. Between emergency surgery for his eye and orthopedic surgery to put a plate in his leg (the other two options were amputation or putting him down) we ended up spending just shy of $9,000 for all the procedures and follow ups. I also feel very similarly about having a responsibility to my pets health. We’re lucky we could afford the procedures, because it would have been very hard to put him down.