DM insurance - double indemnity?

[Lorenzoid]

The whole idea of leading club trips in a quasi-DM capacity sounds fraught with peril. I love that phrase, fraught with peril.

 

[CarcharodonCarcharias]

Given the litigious nature of people nowadays, I'd recommend get your own insurance. It is really about CYA at the end of the day.

 

[Storker]

I think it is a mistake to become a DM just to guide dives for your dive club. As a dive professional you assume a great deal of personal responsibility/liability. You could organize dive trips for your club without being a DM, and let the dive operators eat the professional responsibility/liability.

It probably depends on whether you see it from a litigation perspective, or from a competence perspective. The certification that more or less corresponds to PADI DM in the two large European agencies (CMAS 3* and BSAC DL) are developed to enable the diver to be a safe dive leader on club outings and trips. From a competence perspective, and given that PADI is your chosen agency, it seems like a prudent thing to become a DM. If it's a smart thing to do in a society as litigious as the USA, well, that's quite another question.

But is it really practical to organize a club trip, be on the boat leading your group, and yet avoid being characterized (by a lawyer if something goes wrong) as a de facto divemaster? If it's not practical to avoid being divemaster-like, and if it's not possible to insure oneself against liability for being divemaster-like unless one is a certified divemaster, then it seems like one must become a certified divemaster to lead club trips like this.

Check out the case of drifting Dan Cargill, the immensely important case of a few years ago. A dive club chartered a dive boat for a 3-tank dive. The club had two DMs as members who set up the trip and who called the roll for each dive. Calling the roll is the responsibility of the captain and crew, but the club dms did it anyway. After the first dive, they missed the fact that Dan Cargill had not yet returned, and they went off and completed the next two dives while Dan drifted in the water. He was picked up by another boat, and he won millions in the subsequent lawsuit, with the two DMs the primary focus of that suit.

Check out the case of Stephen Martin, who was charged with manslaughter after his girlfriend and his friend perished in Malta in 2014. He was charged because according to the Maltese authorities, just being the most experienced diver, holding a BSAC instructor cert, he had a particular responsibility for his clubmates. Even if it was a freak accident caused by medical issues, and the dive had been performed according to BSAC's safe diving guidelines.

When litigation or criminal charges enter the scene, common sense often disappears.

 

[stuartv]

I think it is a mistake to become a DM just to guide dives for your dive club. As a dive professional you assume a great deal of personal responsibility/liability. You could organize dive trips for your club without being a DM, and let the dive operators eat the professional responsibility/liability. As to insurance issues, I have been through this situation. First there are a limited number of concerns that are still writing professional liability policies for dive professionals. That being said none of them will allow the same person to be covered under two policies with their firm, and none to my knowledge will cover you if you are already covered for the same risks with another firm. If you are not going to work as a DM for compensation, you would be better off working to becoming a Master Diver, same level of expertise without liability of becoming a dive professional and all that that entails. As with any advice you get on SB, jut one persons opinion.

1) My club requires trip leaders to be certified pros (who have insurance). The club needs to offer my trips each year as a way of offering more benefits to the members. Becoming a DM in order to help with that is one way I am stepping up to help the club.

2) The nearby diving for us is NC, NJ, and the Saint Lawrence River. Boat operators in those areas do not put a DM in the water (unless someone pays extra for that, of course). So, my choice is to offer a trip to people and tell them that they can pay extra to have a DM on the boat to dive with them, or a DM club member can offer to be their underwater guide. I have hopes that more club members will go on some of these trips if they understand that they will be able to dive with a fellow club member who will guide them underwater and without them having to pay extra for that. Some people don't want or need a guide. But, there are a lot of folks who seem to be intimidated by the prospect of diving off NC and so they have never been. Again, it is my hope that they will change their mind and go try it if they have a fellow club member to dive with who they know to be experienced in that area. And once they've tried it, they will (hopefully) then be comfortable to go again without feeling like they have to have a guide.

3) I'm already a SDI Master Diver and even though I'm not yet done with my DM training, I already feel like I would not agree at all that they are the same level of expertise. That is not to say that any given Master Diver might not be just as "expert" as any given DM. I am simply saying that I think the level of expertise that is required to achieve each is not the same and that Master Diver has a lower level of expertise that is required to achieve that certification.

4) The idea of remaining as Not-a-DM is one I have thought about a lot. The problem that I perceive is what @Lorenzoid already alluded to. I can easily imagine that I am talking to divers in my club about going to dive NC. Someone says "well, I want to go, but only if I know I'll be able to dive with you or somebody else that is experienced there and can show me the ropes. I would be afraid to dive there the first time with an insta-buddy." I have heard people already say things pretty much exactly like that. They may also not want to go and pay extra just to dive with some random DM that they never met before. So, I say that if they want to go, I'll be their buddy. We go. We dive. I do everything exactly right, but this new "buddy" of mine has an issue, panics, has a near-death experience, and ends up with big hospital bills. From my perspective, I feel equally exposed to being sued whether I have a DM cert or not. If they are that type of person, their lawyer is almost certainly going to name me in a lawsuit, whether they really think I did anything wrong or not.

So, I want liability insurance that would cover me if they do decide to sue me. And to get that, I have to have a DM cert. Ordinary umbrella personal liability insurance would not cover a situation like that. My g/f is a State Farm agent that sells that kind of insurance. I checked with her and also did some online research to confirm that.

The alternative that I perceive is basically to never offer to dive with someone unless I really know them, have confidence in their skills, etc..

 

[Edward3c]

1) My club requires trip leaders to be certified pros (who have insurance). The club needs to offer my trips each year as a way of offering more benefits to the members. Becoming a DM in order to help with that is one way I am stepping up to help the club.

2) The nearby diving for us is NC, NJ, and the Saint Lawrence River. Boat operators in those areas do not put a DM in the water (unless someone pays extra for that, of course). So, my choice is to offer a trip to people and tell them that they can pay extra to have a DM on the boat to dive with them, or a DM club member can offer to be their underwater guide. I have hopes that more club members will go on some of these trips if they understand that they will be able to dive with a fellow club member who will guide them underwater and without them having to pay extra for that. Some people don't want or need a guide. But, there are a lot of folks who seem to be intimidated by the prospect of diving off NC and so they have never been. Again, it is my hope that they will change their mind and go try it if they have a fellow club member to dive with who they know to be experienced in that area. And once they've tried it, they will (hopefully) then be comfortable to go again without feeling like they have to have a guide.

3) I'm already a SDI Master Diver and even though I'm not yet done with my DM training, I already feel like I would not agree at all that they are the same level of expertise. That is not to say that any given Master Diver might not be just as "expert" as any given DM. I am simply saying that I think the level of expertise that is required to achieve each is not the same and that Master Diver has a lower level of expertise that is required to achieve that certification.

4) The idea of remaining as Not-a-DM is one I have thought about a lot. The problem that I perceive is what @Lorenzoid already alluded to. I can easily imagine that I am talking to divers in my club about going to dive NC. Someone says "well, I want to go, but only if I know I'll be able to dive with you or somebody else that is experienced there and can show me the ropes. I would be afraid to dive there the first time with an insta-buddy." I have heard people already say things pretty much exactly like that. They may also not want to go and pay extra just to dive with some random DM that they never met before. So, I say that if they want to go, I'll be their buddy. We go. We dive. I do everything exactly right, but this new "buddy" of mine has an issue, panics, has a near-death experience, and ends up with big hospital bills. From my perspective, I feel equally exposed to being sued whether I have a DM cert or not. If they are that type of person, their lawyer is almost certainly going to name me in a lawsuit, whether they really think I did anything wrong or not.

So, I want liability insurance that would cover me if they do decide to sue me. And to get that, I have to have a DM cert. Ordinary umbrella personal liability insurance would not cover a situation like that. My g/f is a State Farm agent that sells that kind of insurance. I checked with her and also did some online research to confirm that.

The alternative that I perceive is basically to never offer to dive with someone unless I really know them, have confidence in their skills, etc..

I think this shows the real difference between commercial based training, like PADI, compared to proper club training. As a BSAC Advanced Diver I'm qualified to organise diving at locations where none of the group have dived - CMAS 3* are also so qualified. There is no opportunity to dive with someone who has dived the site before as it's a virgin site. This is how new sites are found.

Most of the sites around Terniff Atoll were found this way when I was Diving Officer for an expedition in the 1990s.

 

[boulderjohn]

1) My club requires trip leaders to be certified pros (who have insurance). The club needs to offer my trips each year as a way of offering more benefits to the members. Becoming a DM in order to help with that is one way I am stepping up to help the club.

You will be even more valuable as a trip leader if you are an instructor who can provide instruction to people on the trip. In my experience with organized trips,some people on the trip will want to get some sort of certification while they are there.

From my perspective, I feel equally exposed to being sued whether I have a DM cert or not.

I am sure you are right. If a diver dives with you with the clear expectation that your greater expertise is a benefit to them, you will probably be liable in an accident. If that diver provides ANYTHING to compensate for your services--like buying you a beer--then you are acting as a professional.

 

[Storker]

In my experience with organized trips,some people on the trip will want to get some sort of certification while they are there.

Just shows how practices and expectations differ in different parts of the world, and with different diving cultures. If anyone on a club trip around here expected to get a new cert from the trip... well, I've never experienced that, and I've never heard about anything like that.

 

[Doby45]

You will be even more valuable as a trip leader if you are an instructor who can provide instruction to people on the trip. In my experience with organized trips,some people on the trip will want to get some sort of certification while they are there.

Happens all the time here. If you go out on a boat dive to a wreck you might have some open water divers working on their Advanced and they could count the dives on the trip as the dives or part of the dives for their certifications. As @boulderjohn was saying, it just adds an advantage to your club.

 

[stuartv]

You will be even more valuable as a trip leader if you are an instructor who can provide instruction to people on the trip. In my experience with organized trips,some people on the trip will want to get some sort of certification while they are there.

The shop owner where I'm doing my DM training already started leaning on me some to get certed as an instructor and that was one of the reasons he mentioned in favor of the idea. I told him that I would keep that in mind. Right now, I really don't have much interest in being an instructor. I have a finite amount of time I can spend each month/year on diving and I would rather spend it actually diving than teaching. But, we'll see...

 

[boulderjohn]

Here in Colorado, we cannot even teach AOW without having the diver go out of state with us--no local sites are deep enough. In the two shops where I have worked, most of the AOW certifications are done on dive trips. That is also when we teach a lot of specialties, including photography, deep diving, night diving, wreck diving, etc.