Insurance

[shell912]

Hello

I apologise if people have recently asked this, but I wondered what insurance people use or would recommend. I am looking for annual trip cover worldwide. If the cover insured my kit as well that would be great.

I have looked at loads of different cover before but I thought it would be good to get other peoples input.

Any suggestions would be great

Thanks in advance

Michelle

[chatters]

I can recommend Westfield. I had the need to claim last year when I lost nearly all my kit. They were quick and efficient an d paid out in full.

Chatters

[John63]

DAN?

covers all diving, medical, and you can add extras to cover travel and family (nondivers).

John

[Treerat]

I do not lay claim to the detailed information below -it was put together on a different forum by Lets sink, I just remembered where it was. We use Westfiled at home, and never had a problem, even when we had to claim.

Andy


I’m sure many of you have a good handle on UK Diving Insurance companies but there have been a number of posts on the subject and I needed to investigate for myself so I’m sharing some of my findings with those who are interested.
I started looking at diving insurance a few months ago and found trying to compare benefits daunting. Both brochures and websites only provide summary information and use slightly different terminology so nothing is exact. I am, obviously, investigating from my point of view so will try to clarify my criteria.
I am looking for insurance as a UK diver, with own kit, who may like to travel abroad during the year and take courses as and when. I feel health and the issues surrounding a serious incident, emotional and physical are paramount.

So, I have some information insurance for equipment; travel, equipment and medical; medical and incident.
I have not looked at every insurance cover on offer and only know a few companies. I started looking into Divemaster but as the kit cover was pretty much the same as Westfield and I found it hard to extract info from the website, I chose to exclude it.
Therefore I am providing some info on DAN, Westfield, Buddy In Depth, Sportscover and Bluewater (thank you whoever posted their name the other day)

Equipment.
As I have excluded Divemaster I only have equipment ONLY info on Westfield.
Looks like an excellent cover, although seems a tad pricey when you start thinking about how much all your kit has cost you. It gives you the choice to decide how much you want to insure with decreasing rates as follows:
£600 - £2,999.99 £4.00
£3,000 - £5499.99 £3.80
£5,500 - £15,000 £3.50

So if you think your kit will cost £5,000 to replace it will cost you £190/annum
Like me, you might want to reduce the cost by considering just covering for certain items and hope, if it is ALL damaged/lost/stolen you can replace some cheaper items from your own pocket.

The cover is what you’d expect – theft, accidental damage and loss, emergency jettison, loss or damage in transit with some other bits and an extra premium for cameras and rebreathers. Includes hire of dive equipment up to £200 and personal accident cover (I think depends on what cover you take out, not clear)

Exclusions also as expected: if theft kit must have been secured/locked away, mechanical & electrical breakdown & derangement excluded, flooding camera excluded unless due to accidental damage, must be within given regulations for private, pleasure and amateur purposes only, must notify appropriate authorities and get report within specified time, claim within 60 days and so on.
Some excess charges.
Plus points if looking for combination cover: Worldwide cover up to 90 days in any 1 year.

Okay, Now for travel. Annual cover. Multi trip.
I looked at DAN, Westfield, Buddy In Depth, Sportscover and Bluewater. I mostly compared mid range offers (there are often 3 types, like bronze, silver and gold) and worldwide cover although 1 excluding USA and Canada (the most expensive actually)
The prices range from £99 to £204 in my selection. There are cheaper policies which excluded some benefits and, obviously, dearer ones with all benefits and higher financial cover.

I will explain DAN separately as it does not compare with the others.

So excluding DAN they all offer:
Up to £5mil medical expenses. Buddy in Depth mentions covering hyperbaric treatment and search and rescue (up to £50,000) Sportscover mentions S&R up to £15,000. It may be covered by the others but the details not provided
Up to £2mil personal liability
The following at different maximums:
Cancellation & curtailment
Personal accident (some clearly stare for permanent disability and/or death)
Hospital benefit
Baggage, personal effects & equipment (highest £2,000 with limits on individual items)
Loss/theft of money, documents and passport

They all have some kind of cover for travel delay, some covering baggage delay, some covering missed departure/abandonment of holiday and equipment hire (due to covered loss, theft etc)

With regards to the real ‘travel’ aspects such as cancellation, delay etc. Blue water offers a good deal with the highest maximums, up to £4000 for travel delay and abandonment of holiday. £300 each for loss of money, cash and passport. However, I couldn’t find any cover on Bluewater for being unable to dive (a prebooking) due to illness and their hire of equipment cover looks the lowest.
Sportscover, Westfield and Buddy in Depth offer ‘unable to dive’ and ‘hire of kit’ cover with Sportscover paying out the highest max at £300. (Buddy in Depth £300 for hire)

Is everyone confused yet?
I have tried to highlight the differences and it looks like:
Bluewater good overall, great ‘travel’
Sportscover, basic ‘travel’ (lowest personal accident/cancellation type maximums) pretty good sports BUT equipment only to £1,500
Westfield and Buddy In Depth, practically the same, good cover in both areas with variation in maximum cover for things like loss/theft of money and so forth. Bit more cover for travel delay/missed departure with Buddy in Depth and they state Hyperbaric and S&R included. Both include cover for winter sports equipment
From what I did look at I would expect Divemaster to be similar to Westfield and Buddy In Depth

The maximum equipment cover is with Westfield, but if, like me, you want to have separate Equipment insurance, Westfield offers 90 days worldwide cover in their equipment benefits so you can concentrate on other aspects.
Cheapest is Buddy in Depth at about £65 and you can add UK for another £50 but the equipment cover is only £1,500 and I have no details on this cover.

I think they all offer single and multi trip (I concentrated on multi trip)
Blue water offers a choice of cover for 30metres and 45metres depth. The others don’t seem to specify a limit except within regulations of PADI/BSAC etc. and training
Sportscover offers benefit for catastrophe and Hi jack

Now, on to DAN. Well sewn up (excuse the pun) medical and emergency cover I’d say, but nothing else
So long as DAN organize and direct the emergency the following have unlimited funds on all their covers (Basic, Master and Super)

Medical transportation
Hospitalisation
Hyperbaric therapy
Medical costs for emergency treatment of a diving injury
Repatriation costs
Expenses incurred for hotel and air fare caused by prolonged forced stay following the underwater accident
Repatriation of mortal remains

There is also cover, up to a maximum, for follow on medical treatment, loss of gear left behind during a medical evacuation, liability to 3rd parties, permanent invalidity (2 options a lot higher than the travel schemes above), search and rescue.
With the DAN cover you automatically get their ‘travel assist’ which covers hospital transportation, medical and deceased repatriation, cash advances/loans for medical expenses and cost of in-patient care abroad.
There is also included within ‘travel assistance’ roundtrip costs for family members to reach members if hospitalisation exceeds 5 days, escorted return of minors, return of travel partner and vehicle if appropriate. Personal, medical and legal assistance and of course you become a DAN member with those benefits.

In conclusion, and I stress this is my own personal thoughts; it seems to me that if you want complete and well organized medical/health/emergency cover, use DAN. Get equipment insurance separately (prob not necessary if you only dive on holiday and/or with hired kit and use someone like Westfield for travel cover) and obtain some travel insurance if you want cover for loss of passport/money, cancellation etc.

If I were to use DAN for diving medical/health and Westfield for equipment I would enjoy the worldwide kit cover for 90 days when abroad. I would also be covered for hire costs if my kit was lost/stolen/damaged and double indemnified for personal accident. But I don’t believe I would have any cover for pre-booked dives if I were unable to attend due to illness.
As for other traveling cover like cancellation etc. I could get any insurance for that from Boots, Barclays etc.

So you can see the policies will overlap in some areas but, sadly, also leave gaps. It depends what your priorities are and how much you can afford.

While it has been complicated and quite exhausting trying to compare these I have managed to see a rough idea of ‘best fit’. All the information was not available so a phone call to individual companies may be necessary. I hope this wasn’t too long and of use to others, perhaps for steering in the right direction for personal investigation rather than being put off by the complexities, which I felt.

Now I just had to decide and make the calls…..

[nickb]

Yep DAN insurance does it for me.

That, in addition to the worldwide travel insurance bundled in with my Amex card, which includes all supplementary cardholders and family members under 18 too. Oh, and a free Priority Pass membership for the main and secondary cardholders, so we don't have to slum it with the shell-suit brigade in the departure pig-pen