Question Another DAN/Trip/Medical Insurance Question

[rlh739]

Two things that I don't get along well with are Electricity and Insurance. One leaves me on the floor, twitching and writhing in agony, and the other might electrocute me.

I'm looking at the following situation and trying to figure out what I need for adequate coverage:

Married couple 66 and 65, pre-existing conditions are managed high blood pressure and cervical disc implants (her). We're going on several dive trips in the next year, including Little Cayman, Spice Islands, and Raja Ampat for a month-long liveaboard. We both have DAN Guardian. All trips are booked on AMEX Platinum, which seems to cover a lot of trip interruption, baggage loss, etc. situations.

So, considering that we have multiple trips, I can look toward DAN's Annual Travel Insurance (highest-tier Voyager is $1,880). Or, if I plug in numbers for one planned trip, the upper tier comes in at Single-Trip Elite for $4,055. It's hard for me to compare, because on the more expensive Elite plan, Medical & Dental comes in with less coverage, but Accidental D&D comes in with more. Emergency Assistance & Transportation is equal. This is on top of whatever Guardian gets me.

Where the plans diverge significantly is Trip Cancellation and Interruption, with the single Elite plan covering much more based on the specifics of the trip, but... AMEX should be able to cover a large part of that. Baggage coverage is essentially equal between the two plans.

My three main questions are:

1) Does it not make sense to buy the Yearly Annual Travel Insurance, or am I missing something important?

2) Does DAN's Guardian coverage plus Travel Insurance cover any non-water-related instances, e.g., hiking, touring, biking while on a trip? I'm assuming that we're quite well covered for SCUBA-related incidents.

Perhaps I'm overthinking this, but it would be nice to get some clarity. Our main priority is to be covered for medical situations; baggage can be replaced.

Thanks,
Rob

 

[also_anon_dc]

I assumed with DAN and Amex Plat (what I have) you would be covered but it looks like Amex Plat doesn't offer coverage for medical care. They do have Global Assist which offers medical transportation/evacuation.

DAN Guardian has some coverage for non-diving accidents but it's only $30,000. I would probably chance it and be fine with that. When I travel I'm mainly diving and suspect any accident would be diving related.

DAN: Accident Medical Expenses due to Non‐Diving Accidents while on a Trip outside Home Country $30,000

If you want additional non-diving medical coverage you can just buy a policy for that. I usually use Trawick International and pay about $50 per trip. What makes the DAN Trip insurance so expensive is they include trip protection which will pay all or some of your money back if you can't travel or you want to cancel the trip. You can get a quote from Trawick without trip protection that just offers medical coverage. During the pandemic I always bought a Trawick policy because it also covers quarantine due to Covid which most other policies did not cover.

 

[lairdb]

1) Does it not make sense to buy the Yearly Annual Travel Insurance, or am I missing something important?

2) Does DAN's Guardian coverage plus Travel Insurance cover any non-water-related instances, e.g., hiking, touring, biking while on a trip? I'm assuming that we're quite well covered for SCUBA-related incidents.

(This is a pile-on, not an answer; please do try to address OP's questions.)

I've been doing parallel research just in the last few days, though the one plan I don't think I've looked at is the DAN-associated plans. Things I've noticed along the way, which may be old hat to OP:

-many travel insurances class SCUBA as an Adventure Sport or an Extreme Sport. Some trumpet that SCUBA is covered -- but beyond 30 feet it's Extreme and not covered. Read The Fine Print. (Presumably not an issue with those marketed by DAN, but I suggest you check.)

-CFAR endorsements tend to be available only within [7 to 10 days; varies] of making the first relevant trip payment.

-Look carefully at whatever medical cover you already have. You may already be covered for medical even outside home country -- though on a reimbursement basis. That might cause you to conclude that you still want some medical cover, but perhaps less.

1) Does it not make sense to buy the Yearly Annual Travel Insurance, or am I missing something important?

Again, I need to look at the DAN-marketed offering, but on most of the carriers I have been looking at, the Annual plan Trip Cancellation/Interruption benefits are negligible; they're more travel-medical than travel-trip-cost plans. Only the trip-specific policies offer strong cover for trip costs.

(FWIW, one of the tools I've used is insuremytrip dot com, which does a quick and dirty multi-carrier quote, and also gives easy links to actual policy language, rather than some of the individual sites that bury the policy language or require a customer service contact to get it.)

 

[Snoweman]

I would look at www.insuremytrip.com for trip insurance. Lots of great choices with each policy explained quite well.

 

[rlh739]

Thanks for the replies. I'll be looking further into insuremytrip.com later today. So far, it looks very interesting, and allows one to customize for specific requirements. (It's frustrating how some policies overlap.)

 

[rlh739]

After quite a bit of analysis and comparison, I decided to tack on a DAN Voyager Annual Trip Insurance policy to my DAN Guardian plan. We have a year's worth of fairly heavy diving planned in faraway places, so we definitely needed the coverage.

I was looking mostly for Medical/Dental and Evacuation coverage. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but coverage was for up to $1,000,000 in Med/Evac. That seems nice. Plus, If DAN were to be coordinating things, I would hope that the Guardian and Voyager plans would provide a somewhat seamless experience.

Trip cancellation still seems light, particularly in that we'll be on a boat for a month in Raja, but perhaps between AMEX Platinum, DAN Guardian, and Voyager, I'll be largely covered. I haven't worked that part out completely, yet.

 

[splash8]

Interesting considerations! I just have to pipe in to say your travel plans sound amazing!! My husband and I met in college scuba class…I would love to follow that itinerary some day! For now we are thrilled that our teens are loving diving as much as we do! Wishing you many fantastic trips!!!

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

Dealing with insurance companies:

1) Completely familiarize yourself with the Voice Note's function on your phone. Initiate it.

2) Once connected with the insurance company representative, inform them clearly that "this call may be recorded for quality control or training purposes"...... which is the same exact language that they stated to you just prior to connecting you to the agent.

3) Ask any and all questions that you want until you feel that you have received crystal clear answers that are to your satisfaction.

4) Save the recording.

 

[HMM]

Two things that I don't get along well with are Electricity and Insurance. One leaves me on the floor, twitching and writhing in agony, and the other might electrocute me.

I'm looking at the following situation and trying to figure out what I need for adequate coverage:

Married couple 66 and 65, pre-existing conditions are managed high blood pressure and cervical disc implants (her). We're going on several dive trips in the next year, including Little Cayman, Spice Islands, and Raja Ampat for a month-long liveaboard. We both have DAN Guardian. All trips are booked on AMEX Platinum, which seems to cover a lot of trip interruption, baggage loss, etc. situations.

So, considering that we have multiple trips, I can look toward DAN's Annual Travel Insurance (highest-tier Voyager is $1,880). Or, if I plug in numbers for one planned trip, the upper tier comes in at Single-Trip Elite for $4,055. It's hard for me to compare, because on the more expensive Elite plan, Medical & Dental comes in with less coverage, but Accidental D&D comes in with more. Emergency Assistance & Transportation is equal. This is on top of whatever Guardian gets me.

Where the plans diverge significantly is Trip Cancellation and Interruption, with the single Elite plan covering much more based on the specifics of the trip, but... AMEX should be able to cover a large part of that. Baggage coverage is essentially equal between the two plans.

My three main questions are:

1) Does it not make sense to buy the Yearly Annual Travel Insurance, or am I missing something important?

2) Does DAN's Guardian coverage plus Travel Insurance cover any non-water-related instances, e.g., hiking, touring, biking while on a trip? I'm assuming that we're quite well covered for SCUBA-related incidents.

Perhaps I'm overthinking this, but it would be nice to get some clarity. Our main priority is to be covered for medical situations; baggage can be replaced.

Thanks,
Rob

Please be aware DAN insurance ONLY covers medical, not general travel issues. I was on a boat that sank, DAN won't pay out anything as I wasn't hurt. Lost all my equipment etc had to be issued with a new passport. DAN doesn't cover normal travel insurance. JUST Medical

 

[rlh739]

DAN doesn't cover normal travel insurance. JUST Medical

Gotcha, thanks. And welcome.

Care to divulge which boat sank? Seems we have that in common, although the boat I was on didn't really sink but rather was parked on a reef. (Belize Aggressor.)

As I mentioned above, my search for insurance was more for medical & evacuation coverage; bags can be replaced. That reminds me to search for a small dry-bag to serve for a bugout kit.