Dive Trip/Travel Insurance?

[outofofficebrb]

Hi, @jonhall.

I’m confused...to my knowledge, DAN’s dive accident coverage doesn’t have interruption and cancellation coverage for trips. Do you mean that you buy a DAN dive accident policy plus their travel insurance product and get interruption and cancellation through the travel policy?

 

[jonhall]

I’m confused...to my knowledge, DAN’s dive accident coverage doesn’t have interruption and cancellation coverage for trips.

Don't have DAN travel; only dive accident.

Following is a copy and paste from the DAN member handbook. Didn't include all of the detail for each type but it is available as a download on their website.

"Diving Vacation Cancellation and Diving Vacation Interruption Benefit
(Available with the Guardian and Preferred Plans)
****This benefit does not provide coverage for cancellation due to unforeseen events other than a sickness or injury that impairs your ability to dive."

$10,000 per occurrence for cancellation and $15,000 per occurrence for interruption with no deductibles on the Guardian plan. It is very specific as to what it covers, but it is there.

 

[Dogbowl]

Here are links to the Canadian and American DAN Member Benefits Handbooks:

Divers Alert Network

See page 25 of the American Handbook. It does seem to have diving vacation cancellation and interruption coverage. It says in that handbook that it’s for Preferred plans only. The American plans are Preferred, Master, and Standard, with Preferred being the highest coverage.

Canadian plans have Guardian, Preferred, and Master, with Guardian being the highest coverage. So based on that, I think @jonhall quoted from the Canadian Handbook. Nevertheless, the coverage does exist in the American Handbook.

I just read the Canadian Handbook and it also has this coverage. I didn’t think it did when I read it more than a year ago so maybe it’s newish? The Handbook says 2016 so I don’t know. Anyway, I’m very glad this coverage exists.

The key is that it must be sickness or injury that impairs your ability to dive. This means that if I get a cold or if my buddy gets a cold and can’t dive, I can cancel?!? That’s HUGE! I’ve got to go re-read it cause I can’t believe it.

There is no cancellation or interruption coverage for other reasons. So, it is not equivalent to the Dive Assure liveaboard rider, which covers more situations.

The Liveaboard Rider

 

[Lorenzoid]

In my mind I have sort of a list of the possible misfortunes I can think of that might impact a dive trip, my vague guess at their probabilities, and my vague guess at the cost I might suffer as a result. (I also keep in mind that insurance companies know all of this with much more accuracy, which is why they find it profitable to sell us insurance.) Things that are low probability AND low cost aren't worth insuring to me. Missing a single day or even the first two days of a land-based resort isn't that costly as I see it. In hundreds of trips I have taken, I have never gotten sick at just that point in time at which it would have prevented me from diving for essentially the entire trip; I think that's a low probability. I can choose a liveaboard with a policy of awarding vouchers for canceled trips, which, while not an optimal resolution, is still worth something to me, as I'm only out of pocket the airfare, and in a lot of destinations I can probably still salvage the airfare by doing some land-based diving or sightseeing. I can lower the probabilities of some events by arriving two days early, leaving 5+ hours of time for international air connections, and those sorts of things.

The ONLY event I have been able to come up with that I perceive as being high-ish probability AND high cost is missing a liveaboard departure due to an (all too common these days) airline snafu, where there is no way at reasonable cost to catch up by boat with the liveaboard at sea. I wish I could buy insurance for only that. As I have said before, being reimbursed a few dollars for dinner and lodging while I wait for an airline to "allow to resume onward travel" is not what I consider a cost major enough to insure against; I am willing to count occasional relatively minor (compared to a $5000 liveaboard) costs like that as part of the cost of travel these days.


On an unrelated (I think) note, @outofofficebrb : when I plug numbers into those online insurance quote generators, should I be including the total cost of the trip, including airfare, the liveaboard/resort, side trips, and whatever else I have paid in advance? It occurs to me that an event that would trigger reimbursement of airfare AND diving--that is, the whole trip being canceled--would have to be limited to something like a major sickness or injury occurring soon before the departure date. That seems unlikely to me. More likely would be something like I mentioned above, where I miss only part of the trip. Why could I not plug in a smaller number of my choosing, so that I'm effectively capping my own reimbursement in order to lower the premium?

 

[KeithG]

That's an interesting point I did not consider. My assumption was that trip interruption insurance is for insuring against unanticipated costs in arriving at the liveaboard's port of embarkation due to delay of the (presumably air) carrier I booked to get me there. In other words, I have not been thinking of the liveaboard's then-current position on the sea as being the "destination"; rather, I have been thinking of the liveaboard's port of embarkation as the "destination." Is there fine print defining "destination"?

....

I admit not having read as much fine print as you and OOO, but your "catch up"/"go home" provision sounds like more than the typical trip interruption coverage I have seen. That sounds like the Liveaboard Rider or cruise-specific insurance. (If you Google cruise insurance, you can find discussions of policies that sound just like that Liveaboard Rider as far as catching up with a cruise ship at the next port of call.)

Trip interruption insurance is all about helping you to continue your trip or get home. And consider that a "trip" can encompass multiple different "segments", do not limit your thoughts to a single voyage on a LOB or cruise ship. My last BIG trip was 21 days and involved 3 different countries, multiple plane flights and bus trip transfers mid trip along with a stay on a river cruise boat buried in there. A trip is more than 1 single "lodging". A trip starts when I leave home and ends when I get back home.

Note that different trip insurance products vary extremely wildly in what they cover. Some are mostly useless?

for example: My "free" trip interruption insurance with one of my credit cards only kicks in after you have reached your first destination of your trip (delayed flight to a LOB is not covered) and then it only covers me if I hurt myself. It is really a very limited form of trip medical insurance. Good if you get stuck in port mid week visiting the dentist because you fell down and broke some teeth and then have to catch up to the cruise ship the next day. I consider it worthless on its own. So I ignore it.

 

[KeithG]

...Do you think your insurance would cover a helicopter to get you to the middle of the ocean, assuming such is available and the ship would agree to receive you? Just curious. That could cost many times the cost of the cruise! Or is the "most economical transportation" subject to a cap?...

My product? Maybe? Every product is different.

there are 2 different concepts to consider:
- trip cancellation before you leave - my product has a fixed maximum per trip
- trip interruption after you have left home - my product has an unlimited amount per trip

1) For my product there are various maximum limit amounts for trip cancellation that you can choose when we renew our annual policy. Asking for a higher maximum will increase the annual premium cost (significantly!). The maximum cancellation amount that you can purchase is $5000 per insured person for cancellation before you leave home. If your trip costs more than $5000 per person then you will be self-insuring the excess amount.

The other premium cost driver in my product is the length of any single trip. You can choose 4,8,17 or 31 days. More days increases the premium cost (significantly). Note that I can take as many trips as I want in a year.

So my product is less than awesome if you are planning a 90 day around the world once in a lifetime trip that costs $30,000.

2) For trip interruption my product has an unlimited amount. This may sound a little crazy at first, but how much can you spend on "transportation"? Certainly way less than the costs involved in any nontrivial medical event. My product has a $5million limit per trip on any emergency medical event. So the cost of a plane flight (or 2) if a trip gets interrupted is just a blip on the radar compared to $5M.

BUT: I do know there are limits on the type of transportation and I do not fully understand them. Driving my own car to replace a cancelled first flight is not covered. Renting a car to travel from/to airport/hotel for an overnight delay is not covered (just learned that a few weeks ago). Taxis instead of a rental car for the airport/hotel trips are covered. Taking a water taxi to catch up to a LOB that left yesterday is covered.

I do not know, but I would guess that chartering a personal helicopter would not be covered unless you can convince them it is a "taxi" of some sort. Maybe I should call them and seek clarification?

All products are different. You need to read the details of each product you are considering - or better yet phone them and ask your questions.

 

[Crystal A.]

I say we start a business selling trip insurance people can understand. When I come across a product in a store that doesn't have a price on it or has some other serious lack of relevant information, I don't buy it. I am starting to feel like I should hire an attorney to find my dive insurance, at which point I just move on without buying any. Maybe one day we will have $10,000 liveaboard trips, and at that point we will re-visit the topic. Meanwhile, we will keep our DAN, keep playing the credit card miles to take super cheap or free flights, and hope for the best. Even DiveAssure doesn't seem to want to share terms until you have moved past the paying online stage, and I am not going to pay for insurance based on a verbal conversation with a sales agent.

 

[KeithG]

On an unrelated (I think) note, @outofofficebrb : when I plug numbers into those online insurance quote generators, should I be including the total cost of the trip, including airfare, the liveaboard/resort, side trips, and whatever else I have paid in advance? It occurs to me that an event that would trigger reimbursement of airfare AND diving--that is, the whole trip being canceled--would have to be limited to something like a major sickness or injury occurring soon before the departure date. That seems unlikely to me. More likely would be something like I mentioned above, where I miss only part of the trip. Why could I not plug in a smaller number of my choosing, so that I'm effectively capping my own reimbursement in order to lower the premium?

When they ask for a cancellation amount you are providing the maximum amount that you think you will need them to pay you if things go wrong. Cranking the number up will likely increase your premium.

As you indicated you are free to choose a balance between maximum claim amount and premium cost.

Cancellation reasons may be more extensive than you first think about. Do you have family (potentially) dependent upon you? Consider a parent, sibling or child passing away or getting seriously ill 1 week or even months before departure. All of a sudden you are called upon to provide supporting care and can not travel. You are fully healthy. Are you covered? And if something does happen, who gets covered? I remember reading about a couple where "he" got sick and was covered, but she was not covered since "she" was not sick. She was healthy and deemed free to travel. No insurance claim for her.

So cancellation is not always just about you.

 

[Dogbowl]

I say we start a business selling trip insurance people can understand. When I come across a product in a store that doesn't have a price on it or has some other serious lack of relevant information, I don't buy it. I am starting to feel like I should hire an attorney to find my dive insurance, at which point I just move on without buying any. Maybe one day we will have $10,000 liveaboard trips, and at that point we will re-visit the topic. Meanwhile, we will keep our DAN, keep playing the credit card miles to take super cheap or free flights, and hope for the best. Even DiveAssure doesn't seem to want to share terms until you have moved past the paying online stage, and I am not going to pay for insurance based on a verbal conversation with a sales agent.

If you email DiveAssure and ask, they will email you a policy. I am going through all my insurance policies right now to determine if there are any serious gaps in coverage. I have 3 policies right now and I think I have a gap for liveaboard specific coverage.

 

[Crystal A.]

If you email DiveAssure and ask, they will email you a policy. I am going through all my insurance policies right now to determine if there are any serious gaps in coverage. I have 3 policies right now and I think I have a gap for liveaboard specific coverage.

I will give it a try!