I did the Everest base camp trek in late 2015, at that time it was quite common (saw it myself and heard about it) that people would do the trek up but to get down they would fake a leg/back injury or blame altitude sickness and the chopper from Kathmandu would come pick you up, as long as you had the right insurance.
I wonder how much a chopper ride would cost at "reasonable rates" (e.g, not the air ambulance but just a chopper).
Surely the insurers would quickly become aware of this, I mean, there are people whose job it is to monitor all claims and adjust prices accordingly.
So while it might feel like the insurers were getting fleeced, it was almost certainly the insured who didn't get the copter ride.