OW limitations

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The reality is that a certification on its own really means the participant has completed a minimum set of requirements to achieve a pass and get a card allowing them to go forth and gain experience. Properly documenting your dives and being able to show it is more important IMO to determine your qualifications than the certification card in your wallet.
The insurance company may not see it the same way as they see the certification card a documentation of ability (a clearly defined set of minimum requirements) going beyond what you are certified to do is likely deemed exceeding your qualifications. In my opinion certification and experience are both required to determine what a diver is qualified to do. but that is only my opinion.

As you said, both experience and certification are necessary. If a diver only has experience it will lack the formal training. There is no guarantee of being doing the right things on the deeper dives and can be an accident waiting to happen. Extreme case, but you've probably heard of the father and son who had been gradually building up to cave dive and had done several cave dives. Experience? No, they died. It's very hard to judge things on an individual basis and an insurance policy has to be clear and applied to everyone in general without room for subjectivity or interpretations.
 
We come across this fairly regularly as a dive centre in the tourist/holiday market. The number of times we get customers not wanting to pay the extra money for advanced training dives because other centres or diving buddies have already taken them well below their certified limits is considerable. We've even taken on divers for ow training who have been taken to below 30m on discovery dives - ridiculous!

It all comes down to responsibility. I personally - as an instructor and dive centre manager - would not be comfortable exceeding a divers qualification depth limits. And all of our staff tow the same line on this. If something goes wrong there is no reason to expect the diver to know how to react, or be able to deal with a given situation, if its one they have no skills or training in. It is in effect an accident waiting to happen - if you can call it an accident. If a diver continues to push their limits outside of their skill/experience/knowledge to a point where an accident occurs is it really an accident? Or just inevitable?

Insurance issues are a complete aside for me, as each policy and situation is different. But if I purposefully took students below their allowed depth and something happened, I'm confident my pro insurance wouldn't cover it, and neither would the dive centre's. The agencies I am affiliated to would most likely not be too approving either!
 
My other half just got her OW a week or so ago and i was surprised that the course and the book with the tests hit hard on not diving below 18m, including the adimin screening ect all included specific spelling out of the liits of OW training. IE As an Basic OW diver I will not dive below 18m, use brathing gas other than air unless certified to do so, dive with in NDL, No everheads, ect. And if you dont sign i guess you dont get your card. This was a padi course. Makes it pretty clear cut and dry what the agency says your training level is.
 
My other half just got her OW a week or so ago and i was surprised that the course and the book with the tests hit hard on not diving below 18m, including the adimin screening ect all included specific spelling out of the liits of OW training. IE As an Basic OW diver I will not dive below 18m, use brathing gas other than air unless certified to do so, dive with in NDL, No everheads, ect. And if you dont sign i guess you dont get your card. This was a padi course. Makes it pretty clear cut and dry what the agency says your training level is.

Did the instructor come up with that? I haven't heard of that before.
 
Me either. I'm quite certain PADI standards say that OW divers are certified to 130 feet. I know (because I have it in writing) that I am insured as an operator for divers diving any depth they are certified for, and when I asked for clarification, 130 feet for OW divers is the final answer.
 
This topic has always been a major debate. Just call the potential insurer and tell them what you have, with who, and make them tell you in writing what and what you are or not insured for. If they say 130 fine...... if they say 60 fine also. You will never get an answer you can trust on SB because of the very nature of this topic unless someone here is an ins seller, and if so still go to the ins co that wants to insure you. Only the specific insurer can say how they will interpret your training level in regards to coverage.
 
On Kwajalein our host, the U.S. Army clarified it for us. First diving is a privilege here; second we dive to the level of our training.

OW Juniors 40'
OW 60'
AOW 100'
Deep Diver 130'

All diving will be under NO DECO protocol and 130' or less.
 
On Kwajalein our host, the U.S. Army clarified it for us. First diving is a privilege here; second we dive to the level of our training.

OW Juniors 40'
OW 60'
AOW 100'
Deep Diver 130'

All diving will be under NO DECO protocol and 130' or less.

I remember like it was only 20 years ago when the divers on Kwaj decided to do a deep dive to something like 300 feet on air. IIRC only one of the 4 came back, so the Army had to help you establish some limits. Sometimes when help is needed, it comes from sources you'd rather it didn't.
 
PADI does not explicitly say that OW divers can go to their version (which follows the RSTC) of the defined recreational limit of 130'. They do not explicitly say that they can go to a maximum depth of 60'.... however.... they do have a waiver which you sign upon certifying which states that you are aware of the extent of your training and you will not dive beyond certain parameters without additional training.

Try to get a direct answer (in writing) of the depth limit from the dive assurance company (in this case DiveAssure). It is almost impossible.... but only that is your answer.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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