DAN 'Preferred' Insurance PROBLEM

[DandyDon]

The Guardian plan is available in most of the US, but not yet in 16 states.

DAN's Dive Insurance is not Trip Insurance and while it does have some befits more associated with Tip insurance, it's clear on what it does cover. The Preferred plan does not cover companion cancellation.

One more case of DAN weaseling out of anything they can due to fine print, fairness be damned. I would never buy DAN insurance because of all the stipulations designed to bite you, for example, the exclusions if you don't use them to make all arraingements for your care (transport, decompression, etc.). If I take a hit, I'm going directly to get it taken care of, not waiting to make a call to DAN and waiting for them to arrainge things. I think their insurance is mostly bogus.

DAN states to seek help immediately, not to call them for treatment. They'll pay according to the provisions.

Emergency evacuation is different. The coverage for that is not a part of Dive insurance, but is a part of membership - and yes, it clearly states that they have to arrange it. Otherwise, higher expenses than needed and abuse would happen, and we'd pay more or lose it.

 

[Diver0001]

One more case of DAN weaseling out of anything they can due to fine print, fairness be damned. I would never buy DAN insurance because of all the stipulations designed to bite you, for example, the exclusions if you don't use them to make all arraingements for your care (transport, decompression, etc.). If I take a hit, I'm going directly to get it taken care of, not waiting to make a call to DAN and waiting for them to arrainge things. I think their insurance is mostly bogus.

DAN is not to blame. People naively believe that the business model of an insurance company is to monetize risk and provide this service to customers for a fair price.

In fact, if you have ever worked for an insurance company then you will realize that the ACTUAL business model is to "take their money and not pay".

DAN is no exception.

R..

 

[Wookie]

DAN is no exception.

R..

I assure you DAN underwrites nothing. DAN is not an insurance company, they are an agent.

 

[divad]

We recently had to cancel an Aggressor live aboard trip because my husband's heart went into Atrial Fibrillation and he was instructed by his doctor not to dive. We both had DAN Preferred Insurance that we believed had the trip cancellation covered. When we filed the claim, they only covered my husband's part of the trip. I am planning to appeal this decision. Has anyone else had an experience like this and/or can give me some suggestions on how to convince DAN that they should cover the entire cost of the dive vacation? I am appalled that the industry leader in dive safety would essentially advocate you going on a live aboard trip without your dive buddy by their choice to only cover half of the trip. Thanks for any help that you can provide!

It seems that you don't have a case.

 

[DandyDon]

I assure you DAN underwrites nothing. DAN is not an insurance company, they are an agent.

Correct and they should shop for the best bids, with any possible commissions benefiting the non-profit. I don't know how well that works out, but I'd hate to lose DAN.

I get my trip insurance elsewhere.

 

[Diver0001]

Correct and they should shop for the best bids, with any possible commissions benefiting the non-profit. I don't know how well that works out, but I'd hate to lose DAN.

The "best bids" will come from the company that has the lowest payouts.... and how do you have the lowest payouts? Right. By screwing people who thought your business model was something other than "take their money and not pay".

You can still get screwed if you buy expensive insurance but buying the cheapest insurance is a guarantee that you'll have this problem.

R..

 

[Hawkwood]

But you still have to have buy the coverage you want.

The OP stated they had the Preferred Plan. That Plan has some Dive trip cancellation insurance included, but NOT for the traveling companion. It's pretty clear.

I don't see how one can fault DAN for the OP's situation.

 

[DandyDon]

The "best bids" will come from the company that has the lowest payouts.... and how do you have the lowest payouts? Right. By screwing people who thought your business model was something other than "take their money and not pay".

You can still get screwed if you buy expensive insurance but buying the cheapest insurance is a guarantee that you'll have this problem.

R..

One can also check various companies benefits paid to premiums collected ratios.

 

[BRT]

DAN is not to blame. People naively believe that the business model of an insurance company is to monetize risk and provide this service to customers for a fair price.

In fact, if you have ever worked for an insurance company then you will realize that the ACTUAL business model is to "take their money and not pay".


DAN is no exception.

R..

I used to naively believe that "Non Profit" meant something different.

 

[Diver0001]

One can also check various companies benefits paid to premiums collected ratios.

You can?

or can you?

In the industry they call that ratio a "loss ratio" which pretty much describes how they think of it. You should try going on Google to find a comparative list of loss ratios for diver's insurance. I would be interested to hear what you find without having to dig through the annual reports of 1000's of individual companies.

Another metric you could use to get a picture would "customer satisfaction" but only if it's a survey done by an independent 3rd party. Anything an individual insurance company says about how happy their clients are is guaranteed to be a lie. Maybe try Googling that too.

I think what you'll find is that the publicly available information is disjointed, incomplete and (deliberately) over complicated with all kinds of quasi mathematical jibberish that makes it hard if not impossible to understand the numbers. You'll also find that most insurance companies don't just sell divers insurance. It's a tiny sector of the market and if you try to peel away the layers of convolution then you'll find that there is no way to discern with any degree of certainty at all how a given company performs in relation to this one particular type of insurance. The simple fact is this. Insurance companies don't want you to know what their loss ratio is and they don't want you to know how happy (or unhappy) their customers are.

Why? Because the insurance company's business interests are diametrically opposed to those of their clients.

R..