The very first thing to say about scuba diving insurance coverage is that if you’ll scuba dive, you want insurance coverage! Numerous issues can go fallacious when diving, and all of them require medical therapy that’s typically specialised and costly.
So, each diver ought to carry standalone insurance coverage that covers their diving wants.
Why You Want Dive Insurance coverage
You want diving insurance coverage as a result of the price of therapy for a lot of diving-related accidents might be astronomical. What’s even worse, in lots of circumstances, common journey insurance coverage doesn’t cowl you for scuba accidents, misplaced gear, and so forth.
Take, as an example, Decompression illness DCS; whether or not it’s a minor or a serious case, recompression remedy is the one attainable remedy. If you’re not handled in a strain chamber, you’ll endure lifelong accidents and even worse. And whereas there isn’t any assure that the remedy will succeed, your outlook is bleak with out it.
The principle challenge with recompression chambers is the price of operation. Nearly anyplace worldwide, a chamber’s price runs at 1000’s of {dollars} per hour. Couple that with the truth that a fundamental chamber session is 2 hours whereas a extra extreme case might require an preliminary 6-hour session, and you’ll see how the prices can add up in a short time. Issues are compounded additional by the truth that you don’t solely want one session, however you may find yourself requiring a number of periods over a number of days, and earlier than you already know it, your invoice is the price of a small beachfront property.
Whereas there are many different causes you must have dive insurance coverage, resembling protection for misplaced and broken gear when concerned in a rescue, chamber therapy is essentially the most vital issue!
Varieties of Dive Insurance coverage Protection
Broadly talking, scuba diving insurance coverage is cut up into two elements: legal responsibility and particular person insurance coverage.
Legal responsibility insurance coverage covers accidents to others brought on by your actions or negligence. Usually, you can’t be held chargeable for others as a non-professional, and legal responsibility protection is pointless. Nevertheless, your duty in the direction of others might fluctuate from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Most nonprofessionals don’t want to fret an excessive amount of about legal responsibility insurance coverage.
The opposite sort of insurance coverage is particular person and covers you and your possessions for any mishaps whereas diving. There are lots of insurance policies round a number of by a number of suppliers. Some solely cowl diving, whereas others are a broader vacation or journey insurance coverage coverage. Some insurance policies solely cowl you and any accidents chances are you’ll maintain, whereas others might also cowl your dive gear that I misplaced and different private possessions misplaced in an emergency. Selecting the best coverage relies on varied issues!
Selecting the Proper Dive Insurance coverage Coverage
There are a number of elements to think about when selecting the best scuba diving insurance coverage coverage. Whereas an expert wants to think about the degrees of legal responsibility protection, this isn’t one thing an novice must typically be conserved with, though there are a lot of others.
Is there a depth/time restrict?
Many insurance policies impose a restrict in your depth and dive durations. As an example, some insurance policies have a most depth of 30m/100ft for leisure diving even in case you have a deep specialty and are licensed to 40m/~130ft. When you enterprise past 30m, you aren’t coated. Whereas uncommon, some insurance policies haven’t any depth restrict like DAN, though even in that case, they do request that if you’re doing dives deeper than 130m/426ft, you allow them to know beforehand.
Vacation spot Protection
One other vital issue to think about with a scuba diving insurance coverage coverage is which locations are coated and which aren’t. Some insurance policies for danger causes will exclude sure international areas and international locations. It goes with out saying that for those who have been planning on visiting one in every of these areas, then a coverage that excludes them will not be best for you.
Protection limits
What are the protection limits of the scuba diving insurance coverage coverage you might be contemplating? Are you coated for hyperbaric chamber use, and if that’s the case, are there any limits on the greenback quantity of remedy, or session, or time? Moreover, will the coverage cowl your medical evacuation in case you have sustained a extreme harm in a distant a part of the world and wish a particular plane to fly you anyplace? Will your coverage cowl this evacuation, and for what sum of money?
24/7 Help
The perfect scuba diving insurance coverage insurance policies present 24/7 help in virtually each nation. Does the coverage you’re looking at present this stage of protection? Nothing is worse in a medical emergency than having to e mail somebody and hope for a fast reply; you want to have the ability to converse to somebody ASAP. Think about if you wanted to name 911 or 999, you needed to ship an e mail and look ahead to the emergency companies to get again to you; that may be unbelievable! 24/7 help in an emergency is a should!
Gear and Varieties of Diving Protection
Some insurance policies limit the diving you may participate in. So, as an example, your coverage might not cowl technical diving, cave diving, and even leisure rebreather diving. So, you have to discover a coverage that covers you for the diving you do.
Additionally, contemplate the place your costly scuba gear is roofed for loss and injury in an emergency. As an example, will your insurance coverage reimburse you in case your BCD and regulators are misplaced whereas coping with an unresponsive diver on the floor? Many scuba diving insurance coverage insurance policies cowl the sort of state of affairs since they don’t need the concern of getting to exchange costly dive gear to cease folks from serving to in an emergency.
Submitting a Dive Insurance coverage Declare
Filling a scuba diving insurance coverage declare is simple so long as you will have learn the small print. Usually, learn the small print a number of instances to familiarize your self and refresh your data earlier than every dive journey.
Whereas every scuba diving insurance coverage firm handles its claims course of otherwise, you must keep in mind a couple of ideas when coping with any insurance coverage challenge. First, ensure you hold all of the receipts for all of your bills. This is applicable to medical prices and extra bills arising from the emergency, like meals and lodging or rearranging flights and transportation.
Second, hold detailed data on the medical emergency, together with copies of all related medical studies, prescriptions, and so forth. Usually, insurers would require copies of this data to again up your declare’s validity and or extent.
Thirdly, notify your insurer instantly if there’s a diving emergency. Whereas some corporations fortunately reimburse you post-event, others insist they deal with the disaster and ship you to their affiliated chambers and clinics. Whereas this can be an inconvenience, it’s typically extra simple because the insurer offers with the funds behind the scenes, leaving you to deal with getting higher and therapeutic.
Lastly, if any gear was misplaced or broken in the course of the incident, file a report with the suitable authority. Your scuba diving insurance coverage will doubtless want copies of those to reimburse you in your misplaced or broken gear.
Evaluating Scuba Diving Insurance coverage Suppliers
With regards to scuba diving insurance coverage suppliers, you will have many choices. Nevertheless, as talked about earlier, there’s insurance coverage for professionals and leisure divers. With skilled insurance coverage, you have to test for insurance coverage based mostly on the county the place you’re employed and the extent of insurance coverage required by your company to take care of your lively standing.
For non-professionals, many insurers supply related ranges of plans.
Nevertheless, there’s one key distinction between the suppliers. Whereas most suppliers are for-profit corporations, Diver Alert Community is a not-for-profit group and the oldest diving insurance coverage supplier. Moreover, the DAN is devoted to enhancing divers’ security via coaching and schooling, and the cash raised from the insurance coverage goes in the direction of funding these actions, not in the direction of the underside line.
So, when evaluating your scuba diving insurance coverage wants, checklist your necessities and begin your comparability, however look intently at DAN!
