DAN insurance is worth it if you intend to have a standalone dive insurance policy. If you dive a lot close to home where your health insurance will cover any dive related accident DAN insurance is perfect for you. If you are looking for a policy that covers you in a dive accident as well as a travel related accident I would look elsewhere.

My Personal Incident

I was in a nasty boating accident in 2020 while on vacation on a sailboat in the Caribbean. It happened late in the evening in an anchorage off the coast of St. Maarten. Our anchor dragged in a squall and I slipped and put a very large gash in my face as well as fractured my skull and broke my nose. I had to be taken to shore and rushed to the emergency room. It was one of the longest nights of my life.

Unfortunately my vacation was over then and there.

I was given several stitches, and I had to fly home for surgery to put my maxilla (top part of my jaw) back in place with a stainless steel plate and several screws. It was not fun. I thought my DAN insurance was going to cover some of the expenses from the accident. My DAN insurance didn’t cover a nickel of it.

I have purchased DAN insurance for years, every time before going on a dive trip. I wrongly assumed that it would cover any accident on a dive boat. That was not the case. It is my own fault for not understanding the policy better. It was not the correct product to purchase for me, and my guess is for  most people it is not the right coverage. I have had a life and health insurance license for nearly 15 years, I should and do know better to understand the coverages of policies.

My History

Now I am not a novice as far as dive accidents go. I have taken tens of thousands of people diving as an instructor as well as a divemaster on several high-volume dive operations in the tropics. I’ve worked at three operations in the Caribbean and managed a dive shop in Southern California. I also worked for PADI for several years. I am by no means telling you I am the world’s foremost expert in dive accidents, but I have a lot of experience in the dive industry.

Dive Incidents

In all of that experience I have seen three people have medical issues from diving. All three had decompression sickness and had to go through recompression therapy in a recompression chamber. One was an instructor I worked with, two were guests at a resort.

I don’t recall exactly why the instructor got decompression sickness, I think she was doing technical diving beyond her abilities, but to be honest I don’t recall the exact circumstances. She needed a couple of therapy sessions and a lot of time out of the water. After that she was fine.

The other two I am intimately familiar with, because I spent hours with them in the recompression chamber as a tender. Both were males and were diving while being very dehydrated. Both cases were attributed to the dehydration, not the dive profiles.

One of the gentlemen was in his early twenties and went through one recompression session and he was fine to fly home a week later with no restrictions. The other was an elderly gentleman, who had to go back into the chamber eight times. Now each session is between six and eight hours long, so he spent a long time in that chamber. I only did the initial session with him. So total I’ve spent about 16 hours in a recompression chamber. Let me tell you, it is not fun.

All three of these were isolated incidents, mostly due to dehydration. I’m not sure if any of these divers had DAN insurance, we didn’t discuss that, but it would have definitely covered most of their expenses.

What’s Right for You

The odds that you are going to have a diving incident is pretty slim. I’m not saying it will never happen, but I believe you are more likely to have another type of accident while travelling. The statistics are on my side.

Is DAN insurance good insurance, absolutely the answer is yes. DAN does great work when it comes to hyperbaric medicine. Even if you don’t have DAN insurance, if you have a dive accident call them immediately. They will direct you to the closest chamber and hyperbaric physician. I think very highly of DAN, I know good people that work there.

The big problem is most of us are much more likely to get injured on the deck of a boat or at our hotel room than we are to have an actual dive accident. Scuba diving is one of the safest activities out there.

Now, if you dive a lot in your home waters without travelling far from home I would absolutely purchase DAN insurance. I currently live in Ohio and I really only dive while on my own sailboat right now.

My plan in the future is to get a travel insurance policy that also covers diving accidents. I feel that with my experience of more than 2000 dives that having a diving related medical issue is pretty slim, but not impossible. I think the likelihood is that I am more likely to have a boating or land based accident that would not be covered by the DAN policy.