Diving Holiday Insurance

[PapaBear]

Well all, I have convinced the girlfriend and we are going for a week in Sharm at the end of October. Now the thing I hadn't considered was insurance. I'm pretty sure plenty of you out there have been on diving holidays so I was hoping I could poach your experience and someone could fill me in on what cover I will actually need?
Specifically I am a BSAC member so will that insurance cover me?
Do I need any special cover for my dive kit, I kind of like my regs and BC and dont know what I would do if anything were to happen to them!
Can anyone recommend an insurer, or perhaps more importantly one to avoid?

Thanks in advance guys,

John

[Daz217]

As Egypt is not yet in the EU it is sensible to have dive insurance whilst diving there. It can get an expensive business if you need medical treatment/recompression/repatriation etc. Your BSAC membership covers mainly third party liabilities so in esscence it does not cover you for recompression treatment which is what you really want covering plus medical and repatriation. If you go on the BSAC website you will find a link to Divemaster insurance who charge about £17 for a weeks worth of cover which IMHO is money well spent you get 10% discount for being a member of BSAC. Welcome to Dive Master Insurance
There are other options such as DAN DAN Divers Alert Network - Scuba Diving and Dive Safety Association
As for your Kit it maybe covered by your holiday insurance/household insurance mine is but you would need to check with your insurance company.
If you want specific insurance for your kit Divemaster offer this as do Scubasure Scubasure Diving Insurance - Specialists in Sport Diving
I can only say that i have taken out the Divemaster insurance for Diving about 3 times and thankfully have never had to claim.
A lot of people have very good things to say about DAN who are well known and very well respected.

[Ding Dang Doo]

I use Westfield,

they insure you up to your qualifications (In my case, up to 40m). Some only to insure to 30m so make sure you check you are getting what you actually need. I think I'm paying £179ish for an annual family (2 adults and 4 children!).

My credit card was offering free annual cover... when I phoned to check, they covered scuba diving... but only to 15metres... wouldn't extend this even if I paid a premium on top, so watch out with this.

IMO they are all very similar, I just went with Westfield, as the guy knows a bit about diving and they seem to offer what I wanted at the time.

You pays your money, you makes your choice.

Pete

[PapaBear]

Thanks guys, knowing that there is specifc dive insurance makes me feel better, so I think the main thing is going to be a big effort to make sure that holiday insurance has quite a bit of dive kit covered!!

[StuartC]

I've gone with Divemaster for annual multi-trip insurance that gives both medical cover but also holiday insurance etc in the event of missed flights, lost luggage etc.

covers to limit of certification, but I also think there are some maximum limits that tec diving could go beyond. Unlikely to be an issue if you're Sharm'ing.

A separate policy for equipment insurance with same people to include regs and camera.
Look at the policy details carefully, there's a clause about you must insure all of your equipment and not just specific items. Not sure how they police this, but I guess it maximises revenue for them and prevents people just insuring cameras against unexplained flooding.


Also if you are to make a claim on the equipment then you need police incident numbers etc and if ditched in an emergency then evidence to back this up etc.

fingers crossed, I've not needed to make any claims...

[witchieblackcat]

Originally Posted by Daz217

... I can only say that i have taken out the Divemaster insurance for Diving about 3 times and thankfully have never had to claim...

I had to claim from Dive Master after missing a trip to El Gouna through illness. They were excellent and I thoroughly recommend them. I got a cheque less than a week after submitting the claim paperwork.

[Mary]

And just to add to the commendations, I recently had to cancel a trip via westfield who also sorted it in a week.

[David D]

Whatever you choose, be careful to check what depth you're covered to. Replacing a lost torch or broken reg is one thing, paying for a full course of recompression is a whole other ballgame.

Sites such as Ras Mohammed are accessible from Sharm where 30m can easily be exceeded. From memory even the Thistelgorm is 33m to the bottom, not good if you're policy says 30m. I've read of two incidents over the last two years where insurance companies have washed their hands of divers exceeding the depth limits stated in their policy.

As I'm heading for the Red Sea, I checked with DAN; no depth limit for air. Tec diving is a little more complex with regard to limits. So I'll have DAN for diving as well as something generic for holiday insurance.