Dive Travel Insurance: What you need to know?
We strongly recommend that travelers secure dive specific travel insurance for all our Bahamas Shark Diving Packages. There are a number of companies that offer this type of coverage. By far, the two we see most often are offered by either DAN or DiveAssure. Here are some of details and benefits of getting the insurance.
Travel insurance gives travelers coverage for unforeseen problems, from a cancelled flight to a serious illness
Divers Alert Network
Dive Specific Travel Insurance:
It’s not like most typical travel insurance, such as the kind you may get automatically through your credit card. Dive travel insurance is tailored specifically to cover for the most likely things that could interfere with your scuba diving vacation. It can certainly take the sting out of missing dives for a number of reasons that are beyond your or anyone else’s control. For example:
Travel Delays
Let’s face it, travel delays are not all that uncommon. It’s especially true for divers with multiple bags of clothes, dive, and camera equipment. A flight delay could cause you to miss out on dives as well as add expenses of flight rerouting or even additional and unexpected hotel stay. Travel insurance will come in handy here. On the same topic, occasionally luggage gets left behind and you may be without essential dive gear until the airlines get it sorted. These insurance policies will cover the cost of having to rent dive gear to make sure you don’t miss out on any shark dives.
Illness/Injury
Aside from travel, there could also be illness, injury that prevents you from making the trip. Obviously this is nothing that can be planned for, but dive travel insurance will help you recoup expenses for missing your Bahamas dive vacation.
Weather
Coverage for weather cancellations is another big reason to get the insurance. We do our best to make up for lost time when we have to cancel the shark diving for weather, but that is obviously beyond our control. We know it’s disappointing for people to travel and miss a day because the weather doesn’t cooperate. Unlike standard travel insurance, the policies offer by both DAN and DiveAssure will reimburse you for the cost of diving if any days are canceled by the crew due to inclement weather.
Single Trip or Annual:
Both companies offer single trip as well as annual dive travel insurance, which may be a great option for divers that take several scuba diving vacations each year. Remember, this is not the same as DAN membership. DAN membership is a great idea for all divers and DiveAssure offers similar programs. These cover for any expenses that are incurred for a dive related illness or injury, such as needing evacuation to a recompression chamber.
While your diving accident policy will pay the diving related medical costs such as hyperbaric chamber treatments, you may incur many other expenses or lose some or all of your trip investment through scenarios such as non-diving medical situations, cancellation and interruption due to many reasons like inclement weather, personal or family issues, airlines delay and many other reasons. A travel insurance policy will protect you against such unforeseen scenarios.
— DiveAssure
Coverage Type:
One last note on the insurance. Some policies offer an optional Cancel For Any Reason clause. This insurance must be purchased for the full shark diving package price and airfare and typically at the time of booking (some within 15 days of making your initial deposit). This would allow the greatest flexibility if you needed to cancel a trip entirely. If you are simply looking for the weather day coverage, you would only need to insure the cost of the diving. Your flights and hotel would not be reimbursed if the diving is cancelled for high winds and seas.
Before traveling, take a moment to browse DAN or DiveAssure’s website, get familiar with the different policies, call them with questions, and secure extra peace of mind before flying in for your Bahamas Shark Diving Expedition.
The specific insurance coverage does vary by region, so you would need to check with the company of what the coverage includes. Each company offers several plans that also offer different coverages and limits. Most provide an easy way of getting quotes directly on their websites, and have customer service numbers if you would like to chat.
