Insurance companies routinely deny claims or offer a percentage of the insured amount as a first offer in the hope the claimant will accept their decision. They do it all the time and it is factored into their business plan that they will actually avoid paying some legit claims because the other party can't or won't take them on.
It is reprehensible behaviour but what do you expect from insurance companies.
Pilots tend to use the "insurance won't pay" thing as an excuse to not do a lot of things or to criticise someone else who did something.
I tend to think that we get paid the bucks to make the decisions and as long as the decisions are based in sound reasoning and a reasonable assessment of the circumstances then you would be ok, even if they did try it on the first time. Certainly the law of the land backs up the commander as the sole decision maker.
I don't abide by the "I did it that way because it was the way my training captain told me" or "that's what we always do" defence, as the captain of an aircraft, or crew member of a multi crew aircraft has a responsibility to use their head and think about the ramifications of their decisions before leaping into action.
Doesn't mean we can't learn something from an event that didn't quite turn out as hoped or even determine not to do something again even if it turned out ok this time.
In this discussion, the max demonstrated crosswind figure is exactly what it says in the wrapper, this is the maximum crosswind we tested this machine in. We don't know if it is because their theoretical testing/analysis said that you go 1 knot over and it turns into an uncontrollable ball of ****, or whether they went to the testing airfield for a weeks flight test campaign and the best they had was what is in the book.
It also doesn't mean that the person hanging onto the aeroplane is capable of managing the airframe in that maximum crosswind condition. It may well be that the aeroplane can do 45 knots but the pilot can only reasonably manage 35, in which case the captain makes an operational decisions that says above 35 knots we are diverting. Similarly as FTDK demonstrated the figure says X but the conditions dictate that I am going to have a go at Y because the alternative is worse.