Musing on insurance (UK based)

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scottishscuba

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Location
Scotland
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I've previously only taken out holiday insurance which covers diving when I'm going away but it seems that many of you have special divers insurance. I'm aware of DAN but their website is in American Dollars. Is there a specialist UK dive insurer (possibly providing annual multi-trip insurance) that is recommended (and hopefully not too dear!)?

I've been bitten by the diving bug again and hope to make several trips annually, I'm also thinking about diving from home too so would like cover for that too.

Many thanks :)
 
Hi there,

We recommend checking DAN Europe, where prices are quoted in Euros. Link as follows: DAN Europe - Sport Plans

There you will find listed sport member packages of various levels depending on your needs. Not sure how often you travel and for how long, but make sure you check timescales for the policies. Only the Gold package option will cover you if you are out of your country of residence for more than 90 consecutive days, or more than 120 days annually. The advantage of the gold package (and silver to some extent) is that it gives significant coverage for accidents, injuries and illnesses that are not dive related - so essentially they cover everything you'd need except loss/theft of none dive related personal belongings, which is not covered on any of these options. So you'd still need some basic travel insurance in addition to cover that on any trips.

Depending on where you are travelling the none diving medical insurance comes in really handy. One of our instructors recently contracted Dengue Fever, for which there is no immunization or cure available - other than just riding it out with the help of UV drips and various other drug therapies. Her total bill for just 5 nights hospital care was close to 2,500GPB. DAN was amazing, handling all correspondence with the hospital, and covering all the costs without her even needing to pick up the phone or write an email herself. Well worth it!

There are of course other insurance agencies, such as InDepths.org, who are UK based. We don't know too much about their policies first hand though: Indepths.org » The Diving Community Resource

Hope this helps, and good luck finding a good policy :)
 
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Thanks for that. I'm a little twitchy about taking out a policy in Euros though, but the cover does lookk better than the Indepths one. i'll have to read the smallprint I think.
 
Yep, always check the small print! Don't think you'l find anything too ambiguous in the DAN policies though.

Euros aside (which should be as easy as a simple currency conversion) we can honestly say that DAN has never let us down. Pretty much all of our instructors choose their pro packages over any other agency, and their customer service and problem resolution is excellent. To quote another example an ex instructor of ours made a claim after needing outpatient treatment for a marine life injury. After forgetting to submit her paperwork she got a personal call from DAN at the end of the year to remind her they owed her money. You don't normally get that from insurance companies!

Good luck, happy holidays & happy diving :)
 
Righty ho I've done a bit more reading.

the DAN europe policy is underwritten by a Maltese company and is based on Maltese law. Should this concern me? If I buy the DAN policy I will still need travel insurance too so I'm effectively double insuring some areas.

https://www.divemasterinsurance.com/annual-multi-trip-cover/ Dive Master (which looks like that in-depth one linked to earlier) offer annual travel insurance with diver insurance on top. The policy limits are lower but its underwritten by a UK company and its English law that the policy is based on.

Leaning towards Dive Master at the moment but if anyone has any other gems of information I'd be very grateful.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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