The underwater world is a fascinating environment and rightly so.  When we consider that there is more water on our planet than land, the world that exists underwater must be something to marvel at as much as possible.  Unsurprisingly, scuba diving is steadily increasing in popularity as both a hobby and a profession.  It is a tremendous tourist attraction as well, particularly for those people who live in countries that are surrounded by land.

The Scuba Diving Industry

The United States has many interesting diving sites, but is not generally classed as the most exciting diving destination in the world.  However, it does serve as a brilliant example of the amount of money that is involved in the scuba diving industry.  There are diving magazines, diving schools, diving travel agents and much, much more.  Unsurprisingly, more and more people in the United States are becoming diving instructors and trying to make a living out of operating diving schools and diving trips.

Diving Insurance for Instructors

Diving instructors need a special kind of diving insurance.  Not only do they need health insurance for themselves, but also to ensure the safety of their divers. Generally, they will need public liability insurance as a bare minimum, but most will also have additional insurance to cover their equipment such as compressors and cameras.

Diving Insurance for Divers

Scuba diving is classed as an extreme sport, which means that if you take part in recreational diving on holiday, for example, you will need to make sure that you are covered for this as part of your insurance.  An accident can easily happen, although it’s the last thing you want.  Not being covered, however, could really land you in the deep end.  Take into consideration the amount of things you would need to pay for yourself if you do not have diving included on your insurance policy:

• You may need to pay for transport from the location of the diving incident to the hospital or medical centre.
• You may have to pay for medical treatment.
• You may have to spend an extended period of time in hospital.
• You may have to be flown back home.

All of these things would come at your own cost, and it is estimated that this could be as much as around fifty thousand dollars.  An expense most of us could do without, clearly.

Diving Life Insurance

If you are a serious diver, meaning you undertake regular dives and don’t just do this on the occasional holiday, you may also want to consider diving life insurance.  If you already have life insurance in place, it is important to check whether you are covered for deaths in relation to scuba diving.  In order to receive affordable diving life insurance, you are likely to have to pass a medical, although sometimes a questionnaire will suffice, and you will pay an additional fee on your existing premium.

Generally, life insurance providers look at a range of risk factors when deciding whether or not a scuba diver is eligible for diving life insurance.  If accepted, the types of dives that are generally included are:

• Recreational diving
• Scientific diving
• Public safety diving
• Commercial diving
• Technical diving
• Wreck diving
• Cave diving
• Ice diving
• Deep diving

Always remember that an insurance company’s ultimate objective is to make a profit, not to provide you with a service.  This means that you need to make sure that you provide the insurance company with all the information they could possibly need in order to have valid insurance.  A single omission or wrong answer can invalidate your policy, meaning that you will get no compensation whatsoever.  Insurance companies will general use highly specialized claim handlers, whose sole job is to try to find ways to make sure that they do not have to pay out on the insurance policies.

So long as you provide your insurance company with factual information, there should not be any problems in the unlikely occasion that something were to go wrong.  Do remember that diving insurance is necessary, even if you only go on a single recreational and introductory dive.  It only takes a single dive for something to go wrong and the financial consequences of this can be devastating.  Most companies offering travel insurance will be happy to add scuba diving and other water sports onto your policy – for a fee of course – but do make sure you find out whether or not this is included.  Also, if you are unsure as to whether or not you will be diving at your holiday destination, it may be best to take out diving insurance on your travel insurance policy just in case.

If you are not yet insured specific for scuba diving we would recommend to check out DAN. Also known as Divers Alert Network.

Do you have SCUBA Diving Insurance?

Photos courtesy of SAS Potato