5 Important Reasons to Purchase a Diving Accident Insurance
July 25, 2024
Written by Elizabeth Langenberg.
Often diving insurance is forgotten about when booking a dive trip or vacation, it is left as an afterthought and purchased in a rush or not purchased at all, seen as an unnecessary additional expense. Many divers (wrongly) assume that their travel insurance will cover them for any diving related incident.
A specialized diving insurance offers the coverage you need for unexpected incidents that could occur while diving. Medical expenses, emergency medical evacuations, hyperbaric treatments and other specialized diving accident treatments can be costly.
DiveAssure offers both annual and short-term diving accident plans as well as premium Dive & Travel coverages with special pricing for SSI members.
With DiveAssure’s diving accident plan, medical coverage is up to $1 million. To reduce your stress as much as possible, DiveAssure will pay directly and in real-time to hyperbaric chambers and other medical facilities around the world. This saves you getting your wallet out in an already stressful situation. DiveAssure works hand in hand with Duke Dive Medicine - a leading team of dedicated hyperbaric medicine experts.
Here is why you should purchase a diving insurance:
1. Sky high diving accident costs
Generally speaking, Scuba diving is a safe sport, that being said, we are descending under the surface, submitting our body to high pressure and are in an environment where we are fully dependent on our equipment, our decisions and our instincts. If something goes wrong, it can go very wrong, and the treatments needed to recover are very expensive. A comprehensive diving insurance not only covers most treatments, but also provides medical experts and help hotlines to assist you in an emergency, help you to get to the nearest emergency facility, assist with communication, or organize travel back to your home country.
2. Evacuation and transportation expenses.
Some of the best diving destinations are in very remote locations and even those that are less remote may require a long boat journey to reach from the mainland. Often the nearest, local medical facility is inexperienced and unable to deal with a complex diving accident. Medical facilities with highly qualified professionals and expensive equipment such as hyperbaric chambers can be very far away from your diving operation or dive site. In the unfortunate event that an accident occurs, sea or air ambulances may need to be used to get you to a medical facility in time. This can incur huge transportation costs as well as additional fees due to changes to your flight home. With the right diving insurance you will be saved from these hefty expenses.
3. Extended hotel stay and additional travel costs
Something we often do not even think about is the possible added expense of a hotel (for you and / or your partner) when an accident occurs. Hospitals may charge a bed rate in addition to the treatment costs. Other possible scenarios may require you to get ongoing treatment and get a hotel room nearby or maybe you missed your flight due to a diving incident which means you must extend your stay. These costs can all add up and put a huge dent in your pocket. With the right trip coverage you won’t have to worry about any of this.
4. Coverage for Lost Diving Gear
You have finally managed to get together your full set of diving gear, maybe you purchased it piece by piece or maybe you saved up and went out and bought the full set. It doesn’t really matter, the fact is, that most divers become quite attached to their diving gear. It does a good job at keeping us breathing and safe under the water and once you have your own set of diving gear you don’t particularly want to go back to using rental gear. Replacing a full set of diving gear due to loss from a diving accident is expensive. With the DiveAssure accident coverage, we’ve got you covered and will reimburse you up to the maximum shown on the description of coverage for loss of diving equipment in the event of an accident during a covered activity.
5. Additional benefits
DiveAssure plans have no depth limit so long as you are diving within your limits of training and standards of your certifying agency. Rebreather divers? Ice or cave divers? We’ve got you covered at no additional cost. This coverage will only be extended if you are fully trained and certified to dive with the specific specialized equipment and in overhead environments or are attending on a course conducted by a professional of a recognized agency and stay within the standards of that course.
Additional benefits also refer to all those things you normally just don’t think about, or maybe prefer not to. They include compensation for accidental death or dismemberment if occurred during a covered activity, coverage for repatriation of remains.
Diving insurance is like an umbrella, you don’t need it unless it starts to rain, but if you forget it or don’t have it with you when it starts to rain you will get wet. You will be very glad that you do have it if you ever need it.
Disclaimer: Please check full terms and conditions for full details before purchasing any of our coverage plans.