Aquawookie:
Differences between PADI and DAN insurance.
The PADI plan is offered by Vicencia & Bucklyey. They are a good insurer but they are a company who are in business to make money. Any profits are used to pay shareholders. DAN is a not for profit, research orginisation who fund research into diving medicine. Any profits they make are used to fund this research.
Don't confuse DAN, with DAN Insurance. One is a non profit associated with Duke University and the other was started by the same guy but as a means to make a living.
My experience with DAN Insurance has not been nearly as rosey.
My spouse had a dive related condition with her vision due to changes in O2 levels directly related to a couple deep dives that day. She was diagnosed with an occular migrane that resulted in blurry and wavy vision. This was the consensus and considered opinion of the ER physician, and the consulting opthamologist. The guy on the other end of the phone at DAN agreed and suggested we follow whatever advice they recommended up to and including a chamber ride if they felt that were needed or if they suspected anything else was ocurring (they didn't). My wife's vision returned to normal in a few days and other than a follow up with her eye doctor for lingering dryness of her eyes no other care was needed.
Surprisingly they paid for the follow up visit with the eye Dr. no questions asked. But what followed was an 18 month ordeal getting DAN Insurance to pay for the ER visit. Initially, after about 6 months of processing problems and proving our primary insurance had paid everything it was going to pay, the company that processes and approves the DAN Insurance claims (here after referred to as "DAN") denied it (despite the phone call to DAN from the ER from the ER doctor and opthamologist) insisting it was not dive related based on the doctors notes in the file and adding that my spouse's policy only covered dive related in water injuries.
After a call to the physicians involved to ask them to add some detail to the notes and after obtaining and forwarding the updated and detailed notes explainining the connection to diving and again waiting months, DAN acknowledged it was indeed dive related but denied it again anyway stating the diagosis was not on their approved list of covered conditions. My mpression was that since the injury was not a run of the mill case of DCS, AGE or some sea critter inflicted injury, getting coverage was a problem.
We appealed and once again had to contact the physicians involved for more detailed information. DAN then was forced to acknowledge the condition was dive related but then denied the claim on the basis that they considered it to be a pre-existing condition. This was based on a medical record indicating my wife had what was referred to as a "migrane" headache following a surgery about 4 years prior and this supposedly had some tie to the "occular migrane" she experienced after the dive - which had nothing to do with a headache at all.
All of this was despite their original recognition of the event as a covered accident with their prompt and smooth payment of the follow up visit with the eye doctor. Go figure. DAN had no explanation for this. At that point I was advised by DAN that we would have to again appeal and resubmit and that DAN would then have 30 days after they received all the requested documentation again to reconsider the claim. I advised that I was done appealing and if I did not receive reimbursement within 10 days I would file a formal complaint with the state Division of Insurance. The check was received by the hospital a week later. They of course have long since been paid so we are stuck waiting for them to reimburse us.
To be fair, DAN insurance farms out the actual processing and approval of their claims to a private company and after the initial filing we never had any direct contact with DAN or DAN Insurance. But in my opinion DAN Insurance is still fully responsible for the agents they hire to meet their obligations. I was not impressed at all with the service and felt that no one I was talking too had a clue about diving or dive related injuries beyond what was on a scheduled list of covered conditions an injuries.
So my advice is if you go with DAN Insurance is to go with the broadest coverage possible to eliminate as much wiggle room as possible for them when they try to deny the claim and remember to threaten to file a compalint early in the process to ensure better service if they stall at all in covering the claim.
Personally, we are using someone (anyone) else in the future.
