Life Insurance Premiums for SCUBA Divers

So here's a question: I'm a father and a husband and am reasonably safety conscious, I would not knowingly put myself at unreasonable risk given the impact I know it would have on my family. I don't walk around in bubble wrap either. I ride my bicycle to work every day, water ski, and play just about every sport known to man.

My wife and I recently applied for life insurance. One of the questions on the form was, "have you ever SCUBA dived?". At that point I hadn't, so my answer was truthfully no. Since then my wife and I have become certified, however. When my wfie went to buy life insurance and, being an honest individual, indicated that she had SCUBA dived, we discovered her rate essentially doubled.

Now this is troubling to me on a few levels. I am trained in statistics and have respect for them as a tool. They predict hurricane paths, life expectency, and the likelihood that a newly aquired player for the Boston Red Sox will manage to produce effectively in any given season. It's the basis insurance companies generally use to establish premiums, too. So why the big increase? Is SCUBA, statistically speaking, a dangerous sport? I've just finished reading a thread where the table was produced comparing the rate of deaths for SCUBA to be approximately on PAR with bowling (.04) as opposed to football (2. something). There are no questions on insurance forms asking you if you've ever played football or baseball...and that brings me to my next concern. Are these insurance companies behaving unethically by discriminating against divers? In truth, I'd rather that be the case than come to the conclusion that dving is pretty dangerous.

Please spare me the remarks that everything is dangerous and that anything can happen etc. I know that. I'm really looking for some informed opinions about the rates and seriousness of accidents that occur in SCUBA as opposed to other common activities, and whether respondents feel the insurance quotes are justified.

THANK YOU! This forum is FANTASTIC!!!!

I think Walter will be along shortly. To me, he is one of the best ones on the board to answer your question. Stay tuned.

:sunny:

I have never heard of that question before. Which insurance company is it?

For a life insurance company the question should be how much scuba diving shortens the average person's lifespan. I like to believe that this is virtually negligible. I wonder if PADI or DAN has any data on this?
ScubaRon

I have heard many insurance companies ask this and lump it with race car driver, etc. because they consider it an "extreme sport". I think insurance companies are basing their facts on some very old data when injuries and fatalities were more common. Today they are pretty rare and insurance companies should re-evaluate their thinking on this. I found this article online from someone that had this issue and this is what he did so I thought I would share. May or may not work for you...
http://www.mindspring.com/~divegeek/risk.htm

I don't know where your insurance company got its data to decide that scuba diving is an increased risk factor in its actuarial tables. As far as I know, there is no definitive compilation of any of the things you would need to do such a calculation:

1) Nobody knows how many active divers there are. It is possible to get statistics on how many certifications have been issued, but there is a huge drop-out rate. Industry estimates of numbers of divers are not much more than wild guesses influenced by wishful thinking.

2) Nobody knows how many people are killed while scuba diving. There is no category in the NEISS accident statistics in the U.S. for "scuba-diving" (and Neiss data is very inadequate as it is). Cause of death in scuba accidents can be listed as many different things in the official reports which may be filed, from drowning to heart attack to air embolism, etc. Of course there is a dispute in many accidents as to whether the victim died "because of" scuba diving, or just happened to die for some other reason while coincidentally scuba diving. Moreover, not every death results in a report, and there is no requirement that all reports be sent to a central compilation point.

An insurance company's assessment that scuba diving is an increased risk factor may be based on anecdotal perceptions. I would be interested to learn the real basis for the assessment.

As an aside, I can't buy the assertion often made that scuba-diving has the same level of risk as bowling. Just from thinking about it, it's hard to see how you could kill yourself bowling, but there are plenty of ways to die under water. I'm not saying scuba-diving is necessarily "high risk", but it has to be higher risk than bowling.

From a contractual perspective, you can try to negotiate away the risk premium for scuba diving with your insurance company. If the company you are dealing with won't budge, try another one. There are plenty to choose from.

Lastly, don't take the easy way and lie. Not only is it morally wrong, in some states, if the insurance company finds out you lied about anything on your application, they can use it to deny benefits, even if you died from some unrelated cause. For example, if you get killed from the Roadrunner dropping an anvil on your noggin, in certain states Acme Insurance can get away with not paying the death benefit on your life insurance policy if they find out you were a scuba diver when you said on your policy you weren't. They claim that you represented an increased risk that they would not have covered if they had known. This isn't true in every state, but it might be in yours, so don't lie on your life insurance applications. A lawyer I know used to work for an insurance company in New Jersey. His whole job at one time was to research the he// out of their insureds who had died with big policies, looking for any misrepresentation on the application, then use that as a basis to deny paying the death benefit. They wouldn't bother to check so carefully until the person was dead, when they could use this loophole to deny the claim. I couldn't believe they were getting away with it until he showed me the court decisions approving it.

Last year I applied for disability and personal health insurance and was asked the same question. I was the first customer of my advisers who had ever answered yes to this question. My advisers head office sent an additional form which asked a few question such as: Are you certified, who is your certifying agency, highest lever of certification, personal max depth, etc. They also asked if I participated in ice diving, decompression diving or cave diving; all of which I answered no to. In the end there was no effect on my premiums but I bet they would have gone up if I answered some of the questions differently.

The company I got the insurance from was Clarica which has since been bought by Sun Life.

Steve

my spouse and i recently bought life insurance with different companies. both asked the scuba question. mine (banner) wanted to know how many dives i had done at different levels of depth, if i had a dive trip planned, etc. doesn't dan or padi now advertise life insurance for divers? this discrimination against divers in the life insurance business is the norm not the exception.

I'm quite curious about this. My brother-in-law (a doctor) made a similar comment about life insurance. He had done some limited diving in a pool during college (~25yrs ago?).

I haven't searched for other threads on this, but I will and post a link if I find one/some.

-Rob

Here's the fruits of my search for life insurance rates:

• Life Insurance for a SCUBA Diver : most of the relevant stuff is here (still not a complete answer to the question however)
• Diving Risks -- real information : not so much about insurance, but good information about some sources of statistics
• Instructor Insurance : Interesting, but not specifically on-topic -- this is liability insurance, not life insurance

-Rob

My girlfriend and I just purchased life insurance policies as well.

We got asked all sorts of those questions from our American Family Insurance rep.

We got asked about scuba diving - we got a raised eyebrow from our rep when we answered yes.

Not sure how much it affected our premiums...but still.

If you look at the death per 100000 it's pretty low!!! Certainly shouldn't be enough to affect premiums too much you'd hope.