UW Photography Kit and Dive Gear Insurance

[Jasmine Corbett]

Hello everyone!

I am looking for some advice concerning insurance of UW camera equipment and dive gear... I have always struggled to find an insurance claim that will cover the full value of my kit (which including camera, housing, strobes, domes, full dive set etc etc adds up to a lot!)

Now my main problem is I haven't lived in my home country for over a year now. I live in the Maldives and I am insured on the island I live on, but want to take out a policy that covers travelling within the Maldives for 2 months. Most of the suitable policies I've found won't cover me if I am already travelling...can anyone recommend any good companies to go for that have high value gadget cover and will insure you if you are already travelling?

I already have the DAN Pro Silver policy for dive activities but want to find something specific for my gadgets.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Tonyscuba1]

A lot of companies may not offer to cover you if your traveling, however if you contact them directly they can sometimes still write you a policy. There is divemaster insurance, h20 insurance to name a few. It’s best to just get a few quotes and check what is and isn’t covered: i.e. if you loose your camera at the bottom of the ocean, if it gets flooded etc.

 

[flyboy08]

A rider on your home owners policy would work....if you own a home that is?

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I had DAN insurance for my camera rig. When I had a major flood they covered the replacement cost for my camera, lens, and housing repair.

 

[Hoag]

I had DAN insurance for my camera rig. When I had a major flood they covered the replacement cost for my camera, lens, and housing repair.

Unfortunately DAN Insurance is limited to those in the USA. When I was stationed in the USA, I was able to get it for my UW Camera gear, but when I moved back to Canada, they would no longer honour the policy.

 

[GirlonFire]

I had DAN insurance for my camera rig. When I had a major flood they covered the replacement cost for my camera, lens, and housing repair.

Is that the DAN dive insurance or their travel insurance?

 

[Hoag]

Is that the DAN dive insurance or their travel insurance?

DAN offers (or at least they did at one time) the option for insurance on certain dive related gear including camera gear and housings. It was a separate stand alone policy that was actually quite reasonably priced. IIRC, it included not only loss and theft, but also damage as a result of flooding.

The catch was that it was only available to DAN members in the USA. When I moved back to Canada, the policy ceased to be in effect.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Is that the DAN dive insurance or their travel insurance?

H2O Insurance

 

[GF99/99]

A rider on your home owners policy would work....if you own a home that is?

I second this, I use to shoot wildlife photography and owed maybe $40k worth of camera gear mostly in lenses and traveled a lot with it so I was very worried about theft/damage during airline travel, or theft from hotel rooms in third world countries. I insured with State Farm insurance and had a Personal Artifacts Policy (PAP) its is an add on to your home owners or rental policy. You submit an itemized list of what you want insured (literally can be anything however some things like jewelry, antiques etc. will require an appraisal) and the value and then its insured and it is good anywhere in the world. I'm not an insurance guru nor will I every be, way to much fine print and lawyer talk but if you just call State Farm and ask them about there PAP and how it works I'm sure they will be more than happy to explain it much better than I can or whoever you insure with I'm guessing other companies have a similar thing to stay competitive with each other. All I know is the state farm PAP was the cheapest and best way to insure that I found, I was paying about $500 a year for the PAP. I personally had my laptop stolen in Cambodia luckily I had this on my PAP and it was fully coved I was sent a check with a week if I remember correctly. Also the very nice thing about this policy is there was no deductible and it does not affect your home owners policy if you make a claim on it. In my onion this is the best part about the policy, normally if you just had a $1500 laptop stolen you would just bite the bullet its not worth paying the $1000 deducible to file a home owners claim and then have your policy premiums sky rocket the next year.