Dive insurance companies and accidents

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divezonescuba

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Not sure if this is the correct forum for this post, but I believe it is relevant to accidents.

I would like input as to why dive insurance companies pay off on accidents resulting in injuries which occur when a diver dives beyond their certification level. For example, a recreational diver routinely exceeds recreational limits and repeatedly bends or otherwise injures themselves and yet their medical expenses are covered.

If the dive insurance companies did not pay off on these types of accidents waiting to happen, they would be in essence promoting safer diving and the premiums for other responsible divers might be substantially lower.
 
For me, if there is insurance that has limitations and insurance that doesn't, I'll buy it without. For instance, would you buy car insurance that was no good if you were driving above the speed limit or ran a stop sign?
 
I don’t want the insurance company to go on a fault-finding mission to save themselves money. Most people don’t injure themselves on purpose. Except smokers. But even they don't get denied lung cancer treatments.
 
Not sure if this is the correct forum for this post, but I believe it is relevant to accidents.

I would like input as to why dive insurance companies pay off on accidents resulting in injuries which occur when a diver dives beyond their certification level. For example, a recreational diver routinely exceeds recreational limits and repeatedly bends or otherwise injures themselves and yet their medical expenses are covered.

If the dive insurance companies did not pay off on these types of accidents waiting to happen, they would be in essence promoting safer diving and the premiums for other responsible divers might be substantially lower.

A few reasons...
There’s no exclusion for stupidity. In insurance, if it’s not specifically excluded, it must be included in the coverage.

Secondly, actuaries have done the math (and they’re way better at math than you and me) and as long as you have paid your premium, and their settlement is less than policy limits, they make money every single time (in the long run)

Last, a bunch of bad publicity that might arise from “So and So Insurance Company didn’t pay my claim” is bad for business. And as stated above, as long as they settle for policy limits, they’re not going to lose money in the long run.

FYI, I own an insurance company holding several licenses, including an adjuster license.
 
I know everyone loves to hate insurance companies. Really though they are staffed by people and those people generally are trying to do the right thing. If you are covered they want to pay out. If they don’t pay out it will probably be a load of hassle and then they will have to pay out anyway.

You might point out that their end of year bonus depends on profit. Well, is that profit more influenced by how many huricanes hit Florida or by how many divers get bent? And the actuaries ought to be making good guess on the bent divers and setting premiums as appropriate.
 
Most people don’t injure themselves on purpose.

Except diabetics that don't lose weight, addicts that keep using drugs and alcohol, people with heart problems that sit on the couch eating Dorito's...lots of people hurt themselves.
Rescue and healthcare isn't denied to extreme climbers and skiers, the Coast Guard still goes out to find boats that should have never left the dock. Who gets to decide how stupid you have to be to be to pay a price.
 
Who gets to decide how stupid you have to be to be to pay a price.
True, and also the person that uses cell phone GPS driving, changes a ceiling light while standing on a spinning office chair at the very top of a flight of stairs, ( my husband tried this!), or kissed a new acquaintance at college and got exposed to menengitis...
but the list getting big enough to include us all!
Healthcare that can blame people to save money would turn into Corporate Stalin! Already if you get physical Therapy they hound you to discover if it was a work injury or car accident and if it was they will force you to sue other party to collect costs.
 
Except diabetics that don't lose weight, addicts that keep using drugs and alcohol, people with heart problems that sit on the couch eating Dorito's...lots of people hurt themselves.
Rescue and healthcare isn't denied to extreme climbers and skiers, the Coast Guard still goes out to find boats that should have never left the dock. Who gets to decide how stupid you have to be to be to pay a price.
Interestingly, I have a new boat. Now, my old boat had a professional dive policy on it, and everything that I bought coverage for was covered, no questions asked. However, the new boat is 2 years newer than the old boat, but just has a recreational policy on it. New boat is 2 years newer, and insured for about 20% of the value of the old boat.

I cannot get windstorm on it. Not a big deal, as I own it outright and have plenty of places to hide, but the old boat and insurance allowed me to go and be insured anywhere I wanted to go (including Cuba) as long as I went legally. New boat restricts me to south Florida and Bahamas and within 100 miles of land.

So insurance companies do pay attention to how stupid you want to be, but they do it up front....
 
I can fix that for you if you want @Wookie.

There's no way I'd have a boat without windstorm.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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