DAN Insurance: Guardian or Preferred

[Centrals]

Agreed - in our case we stopped at step 3 as our travel insurance covers everything (and much more) than DAN does.

Pity that I don't live in Toronto. Anyway the place is far too cold for me!
Cheers.

 

[Anthony A.]

Agreed - in our case we stopped at step 3 as our travel insurance covers everything (and much more) than DAN does.

Which insurance do you use specifically and how much approx. per year is it?

 

[dberry]

@outofofficebrb you said that your trip insurance covers more than DAN, but are you comparing it to the DAN dive medical insurance, or to the separate DAN trip insurance? I thought the DAN trip insurance was very comparable to the dive assure plans...

 

[Lorenzoid]

Missed connection insurance of the type offered to cruise ship travelers might cover the same thing as a Liveaboard Rider. As always, one would have to read the fine print.

 

[KeithG]

Which insurance do you use specifically and how much approx. per year is it?

We use a Blue Cross product available in eastern Canada called the "Annual Package Plus" which includes Medical, Trip Cancellation and Trip Interruption coverage. I find their website confusing to use... Annual travel health insurance - Ontario Blue Cross .

Our premiums started at around $500 per year for 2 of us when we first started using them about 3 years ago. Your premium may be different depending upon a couple of choices: trip duration & trip cancellation before departure.

We started with 17 day "trip duration" and $2500 "trip cancellation before departure" per person. You can vary the cost of the premium (up or down) by altering the "trip duration" or the "trip cancellation before departure limit". At that time we had a 2 week trip (not diving) upcoming so we stretched the duration to be longer than 2 weeks. Our premium would have been been lower if we chose to reduce these amounts. Our current premium is significantly higher as we are now traveling excessively and have raised these limits.

The amount of medical coverage and inclusions/exclusions do not change. $5,000,000 emergency medical per person per trip including scuba activities (with no annual or lifetime restriction). No silly exclusions for reasons why your trip was interrupted / cancelled.

The easiest way to establish the premium cost is to phone and ask.

 

[outofofficebrb]

@outofofficebrb you said that your trip insurance covers more than DAN, but are you comparing it to the DAN dive medical insurance, or to the separate DAN trip insurance? I thought the DAN trip insurance was very comparable to the dive assure plans...

I currently have DAN dive accident and considered DAN travel insurance. Dive Assure still offers more over DAN for trip/travel insurance at competitive rates - for one, their emergency medical expense/evacuation coverage goes higher if you opt for the higher plans. They also have non=medical emergency evacuation coverage. Their baggage/diving gear loss/theft coverage also goes up to double what DAN offers. It also covers lost diving days to due medical or weather. Dive Assure also offers a Liveaboard Rider which DAN does not even offer. Dive Assure also gives you the option to buy it as primary insurance or secondary insurance.

DAN travel insurance can and will cover a lot of what people need. I already pay for DAN accident annually so that is already done. If I am going on a $$ liveaboard trip, I usually will buy the Dive Assure plan w/ Liveaboard Rider plus a separate policy from GeoBlue for non-diving issues to supplement. It's a bit overkill, but if it's only going to cost me somewhere between $15-$40 (depending on age - this is for me, zip code, where you're going, duration of your trip) for $1M coverage, $0 deductible covering pre-existing conditions in addition to what I already have through Dive Assure emergency medical, it's a no brainer if I am going somewhere remote and something happens. In case I have already lost you, I would have one dive accident only policy (DAN), one blended dive accident and travel policy w/ LOB rider (Dive Assure), and one pure non-dive policy which limits dive issues to some ridiculously low amount (GeoBlue).

 

[outofofficebrb]

Missed connection insurance of the type offered to cruise ship travelers might cover the same thing as a Liveaboard Rider. As always, one would have to read the fine print.

Yes, it would seem it would cover for the missed connection. The nice thing about the rider is that it also covers medical/weather inability to dive, dive accidents by other passengers that causes cancellation in dives, mechanical breakdowns that the operator won't reimburse for (including compressor issues or boat itself or any reason that you would have to abandon ship for)...and less likely but the operator going out of business. The rider isn't very much. Dive Assure offers the option to purchase travel insurance without the dive accident - you have to call instead of doing it online though. I spoke with someone on FB who recently had to make a claim and it worked out well.

Sorry to the OP - I wasn't meaning to hijack the thread and throw in some travel insurance into the mix.

 

[dberry]

@outofofficebrb Thanks for the thorough explanation!

 

[ColoDale]

We used Master for many years then switched to Preferred just because the additional cost is not that much more. If something were to happen internationally we would not know the cost upfront and get a big surprise. One might assume that since USA health care costs are high that other countries would be cheaper but that could be a false assumption.
Guardian is not available in Colorado. I did not click the other states on the DAN website but there seems to be exclusions by state. I assume that since you are aware of Guardian then it is available to you.

 

[KeithG]

Yes, it would seem it would cover for the missed connection. The nice thing about the rider is that it also covers medical/weather inability to dive, dive accidents by other passengers that causes cancellation in dives, mechanical breakdowns that the operator won't reimburse for (including compressor issues or boat itself or any reason that you would have to abandon ship for)...and less likely but the operator going out of business. The rider isn't very much. Dive Assure offers the option to purchase travel insurance without the dive accident - you have to call instead of doing it online though. I spoke with someone on FB who recently had to make a claim and it worked out well.

Sorry to the OP - I wasn't meaning to hijack the thread and throw in some travel insurance into the mix.

I welcome your info! Travel insurance is a huge part of the mix.

But I still get my panty's in a bit of a knot with many peoples devout allegiance to (lower cost?) insurance providers. Cheap is cheap.

You describe a whole pile of specific instances that are covered. This implies other undescribed instances are not covered. It also highlights that many insurance products carry a ton of exclusions. This situation drives the "read the fine print" warnings.

I believe I tend to (over?) promote the (more expensive?) Blue Cross product we use since every scenario I tossed at them during my product investigation was covered. I clearly remember the call taker getting a little exasperated with me and finally blurting out "we are a premium product, we cover everything for any reason". They have backed this up for every claim we have made.

My experience with "free" credit card travel insurance was the exact opposite. They failed to cover any of my |top 5 most expected" scenarios.