Buy Dan Travel Insurance At Your Own Risk. Did You Know This?

[Dizzi Lizzi]

To what kind of diver would it really matter whether DAN travel insurance would exclude a dive injury in SoCal? For a dive injury, DAN accident insurance would cover it. Most of us conscientious divers (the kind who even think about insurance) have long had DAN accident insurance or something similar. So, as I posited above, claims on a travel insurance policy due to a dive injury would likely be for so-called "trip interruption." What kind of costs would a foreign diver visiting California be faced with forfeiting due to trip interruption? My guess is minimal costs. Is there really anything like, say, liveaboards or dive resort packages that a foreign diver might have forked over a lot of cash in advance for? I know there are a few liveaboards, but do they really get a lot of foreign divers?

Who would not want to get reimbursed for trip interruption? To lose that because you did not have a DM would suck if you are in an area where it is not routine to have DM for each and every dive. I have downloaded my DAN plan and will cure my insomnia tonight!!

 

[Dizzi Lizzi]

The dive park does.

Yes there are many cruise ships that dock in Avalon/Catalina and there are many many "foreign" divers for those excursions. As well as domestic divers

 

[Lorenzoid]

Yes there are many cruise ships that dock in Avalon/Catalina and there are many many "foreign" divers for those excursions. As well as domestic divers

First of all, this is travel insurance, and so it covers only people traveling outside their home country. A US resident cannot use DAN travel insurance to make a claim for a trip to Catalina. So whether there are "domestic divers" is irrelevant.

Cruise ships or liveaboards? We're talking diving accidents. If you are considering a scenario where a foreign cruise ship passenger disembarks in Catalina and goes on a dive without hiring a divemaster, I just don't think that scenario happens often enough for an insurer to be concerned their insurance will not be competitive with others'. As I see it, DAN's travel insurance with its oh-so-heinous exclusion of DM-less diving might serve people like cruise ship vacationers reasonably enough. This doesn't mean I don't wholeheartedly agree with @Altamira's point that DAN's travel insurance doesn't fit DAN's traditional customer base very well.

 

[TMHeimer]

Altamira, to go back to your OP, maybe I missed a post that followed, but it seems the loss of travel coverage if no DM or below 120' was listed as 1. under General Exclusions. It would seem hard to miss-- or was it really buried in some big paragraph somewhere?

 

[Dizzi Lizzi]

Good point lorenziod! I didn't realize that travel insurance did not cover domestic travel.

 

[gr8jab]

First of all, this is travel insurance, and so it covers only people traveling outside their home country.

Um. I don't think this is correct. I'm not sure what qualifies as 'travel', but I don't think it is defined as only outside of one's country of residence.

Directly from CSA's web site:

In business for over 20 years, CSA Travel Protection, based in California, provides comprehensive travel insurance plans for travelers taking domestic and international trips. The benefits in the plans are built on the needs of the customers, travel professionals and the underwriter. Their plans are underwritten by Generali U.S. Branch.​

 

[Dizzi Lizzi]

I'm out!

 

[scagrotto]

I don't see the exclusions likely impacting the average traveling diver that much.

What kind of costs would a foreign diver visiting California be faced with forfeiting

I'm not trying to be nasty, but my assessment is that you're thoroughly clueless and out of touch with reality.

We could argue about the meaning of "average", and it's possible that the 120' (maybe it's supposed to be 130', which fits the standard recreational limit and conforms closely to the 40m the rest of the world uses) and DM exclusions wouldn't affect 70 or 80% of divers, but they're definitely going to affect a substantial percentage of serious divers. If I go to Grand Cayman most ops insist that wall dives be done with a group led by a DM, but the DM is usually happy to turn you loose when you're back up to about 60' or thereabouts. The 2nd dive is a shallow one, and I've never encountered an op that won't let you dive on your own (with a buddy). Shore diving on GC is quite common. At CocoView, in Roatan, there are two boat trips per day. Each starts with a dive lead by a DM, and then they'll drop you on the wall near the resort for a 2nd dive on the way back. The average diver at CCV will be doing half of their boat dives without a DM. Then there's the very easy and unlimited shore diving; some guests don't even bother with the boat dives. My personal record is 7 dives in one day, 5 of which were without a DM. Some liveaboards will run group dives, and on others you can go on your own whenever you feel like it. There's a big world out there that's apparently beyond your experience where there's a lot of diving being done without a DM.

As for costs, if you miss a week of pre-paid diving and can't use a week of pre-paid lodging you're losing something you bought, but there's not really a financial loss. The problem is that you can incur a bunch of additional costs as a result of an accident. If travel dates change you'll at least be paying an airline's fee to change your flights, and you'll usually be paying a higher fare for the rescheduled flight, typically for you and at least one traveling companion. You may end up in a different location where you need new accommodations. Then there's the possibility that you need medical treatment that's not available where you are. Maybe the nearest recompression chamber is on a different island that's hundreds of miles away. That means flying there at a cabin altitude that's as close as possible to sea level, and that means a charter flight. That charter flight might be a real air ambulance, and could cost many thousands of dollars.

And I have NO coverage if I am driving a 4wheel drive

If it just says no coverage when driving a 4WD that illustrates one of the problems with insurance companies. So do several of the other things posted above. I've got no quarrel with an exclusion if you're actually out 4 wheeling some place, but most driving with 4WD vehicles is done on dry, paved roads. The vast majority of people who go to St John (USVI) rent 4WD, and if they go off-road it's only because some villas are on unpaved, and somewhat rutted roads. That involves some minor risk you wouldn't have elsewhere, but it also reduces your risk of a 55 mph head on collision to roughly zero.

These are weasel words.

They're total BS that should be tossed out in a lawsuit. How is "a high level of stress or risk" determined, and by whom? If it's up to the insurance company it's a get out of jail free card so they can deny coverage for a host of things that really don't entail significant risk.

 

[Altamira]

Altamira, to go back to your OP, maybe I missed a post that followed, but it seems the loss of travel coverage if no DM or below 120' was listed as 1. under General Exclusions. It would seem hard to miss-- or was it really buried in some big paragraph somewhere?

Tom,
You are correct, under General Exclusions, there is only one 1., but under that number are subparagraphs a. through u., of which the scuba exclusion is in subparagraph i., stuck between ".. mountain climbing, bungee cord jumping, skydiving, parachuting, hang gliding, parasailing, caving, extreme skiing, heli-skiing, skiing outside marked trails, boxing, full contact martial arts...", and "...travel on any air-supported device, other than on a regularly scheduled airline or air charter company."

I did not catch the specific wording about the requirement for a DM when I read through the DAN policy for the first time, perhaps because I had just read through three policies from the other travel insurance agencies cited in my original post that all had a DM requirement, but only for non-certified divers. When I caught it during my second read through, I thought the wording must have been a mistake or typo. After all this was a DAN insurance product catering to divers. Since this issue has apparently never been identified or discussed on SB before now, I doubt I am the first or only one to have missed it. But if I am, that is OK by me. I am just glad I caught the problem before giving DAN my money.

Now that I have identified the problem, and it has been thoroughly discussed, I am happy that you found it easily, and hope you and all divers will read and understand every word of your insurance policies before making your decision to purchase or not purchase a specific insurance product.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Um. I don't think this is correct. I'm not sure what qualifies as 'travel', but I don't think it is defined as only outside of one's country of residence.

My apologies to you and Lizzi. From the DAN travel insurance policy, a trip would include: "A period of round-trip travel at least 100 miles away from Home to your designated vacation destination associated with the purchase of this insurance ...."

I suppose I was mistaken in my belief that these travel insurance policies apply only to foreign travel stems from never having heard of anyone buying one for domestic travel. Reading the travel forums, they are always discussed in the context of foreign travel, where someone's health insurance from their home country may not be useful, or where someone has spent a lot of money up front on a big trip, like a resort or cruise. Likewise, having read a number of travel insurance websites, I have always felt a strong implication that this was for travel to another country. But that's not to say no one ever buys a travel insurance policy for domestic travel. Domestically, we all (supposedly) have our regular health insurance. So again, I guess the reason someone might buy travel insurance for a domestic trip would be if they paid a lot up front for some kind of vacation within the US and wanted to protect against the trip being canceled or interrupted. Since golf/tennis/spa resorts are not my thing, I am not familiar with this kind of trip. But okay, I can see it being within the realm of possibilities that someone who does that kind of domestic vacation would buy travel insurance. However, I have to believe it is uncommon. It would be interesting to see the percentage of travel insurance policies purchased for domestic vacations versus vacations abroad.

@scagrotto: I was responding specifically to the comment about cruise shippers doing a dive when they stop at Catalina. Few cruise shippers are going to cart a wheelbarrow over to Casino Point and do a dive on their own, and even if they did, they're not going to reach 120 feet there. If they take a boat out, they're almost surely going to hire a DM. One out of a thousand foreign visitors might be brave enough to take a boat out and follow the lead of local divers in diving without a DM. What motivation would an insurance company have to cater to that one in a thousand case?. Your mention of Cayman and Roatan as examples of places where people dive without DMs is irrelevant to my comment about Catalina. I never made a generalization that "travel insurance is useless." Travel insurance most certainly has its usefulness. If you read the last sentence of my post, you'll see I agree with @Altamira's original comment that DAN's travel insurance exclusions make it ill-suited for the type of diver who visits dive resorts on Cayman, Roatan, etc. The exclusions are clearly geared toward someone who does a dive here and there as part of a cruise or lounge-on-the-beach type of vacation--the types of dives that are extremely unlikely to be done without a DM or to depths beyond 120 ft (or 40 m or whatever). If you're concerned about losing most of the money you paid CocoView because you might get hurt on the first day shore diving without a DM or beyond 120 feet and have to go home, then by all means get travel insurance.