DAN might not be what you think it is...

[Joshua Smith]

Huge bummer Matt. Fighting with an insurance company can be almost as painful as the incident! As a new diver considering DAN, I'm now having second thoughts.

You might want to read THIS THREAD about DAN's insurance before making up your mind about that.

[Sockmonkey]

Huge bummer Matt. Fighting with an insurance company can be almost as painful as the incident! As a new diver considering DAN, I'm now having second thoughts.

While I feel Mattley's aggravation... and I'm sorry his drysuit won't get paid for... but diving without DAN insurance makes little sense. Maybe their policiies about where the dive begins and ends is utter crap... I can't imagine paying for a chamber ride. I don't just say that because the closest chamber is a medivac away on Oahu ($$$).

Even if you never take a serious enough DCS hit to need the chamber.. being able to call DAN with neurotic and random dive medicine related questions is a major perk.

And if you do bend yourself you can be sure that DAN will be there for you along the way. Imagine getting an ignorant EMT or emergency room doctor (health care here is 3rd world) I want to be able to hand the phone to that caregiver and say "Talk to this person in North Carolina please".

-Eric

[Pez7378]

Huge bummer Matt. Fighting with an insurance company can be almost as painful as the incident! As a new diver considering DAN, I'm now having second thoughts.

Being a new diver, you should consider the cost, which should cause you to have second thoughts. However, if you're going to dive, always dive with DAN.

[jeffgerritsen]

It's time to bankrupt all insurance companies and go to a single payer system :angry:

Fat chance that will happen :angry:

[renoun]

One can choose to support the DAN organization via membership and purchase accident insurance from an underwriter not affiliated with DAN. Options include DiveAssure which provides dedicated services for divers or something more like Global Rescue which provides repatriation for travelers in conjunction with their own medical insurance.

DAN's insurance is secondary to your own medical coverage, pretty worthwhile if you have high deductibles or limited out of network coverage but might not be necessary for folks who dive locally and have really good medical insurance. For example I won't be traveling out of state this year, and as a Group Health subscriber I would normally receive inpatient care at Virgina Mason so a chamber ride wouldn't even be out of network.

It certainly behooves one to read the fine print about benefits and exclusions. For example DAN insurance won't pay for a medievac if it isn't arranged through their call center. If I get bent at Neah Bay, the local ems protocols are followed and I get flown to Seattle by Airlift NW, and nobody called DAN they probably won't pay. It still sucks if they have changed their language about what constitutes a dive accident though and I hope a little advocacy will get a more reasonable benefit restored.

[Paulicarp]

It's time to bankrupt all insurance companies and go to a single payer system :angry:

Fat chance that will happen :angry:

did you really go there?

[Dashrynn]

Being a new diver, you should consider the cost, which should cause you to have second thoughts. However, if you're going to dive, always dive with DAN.

sounds like a commercial to me.

[Jaksonbrown]

It's time to bankrupt all insurance companies and go to a single payer system :angry:

Fat chance that will happen :angry:

Ohh god... here we go... destroy capitalism and go for government control....thats the solution!

Its just business Matt....For some insurance companies, they routinely deny the first claim by an insured if it is even slightly questionable,..as standard company policy. Half of the people filing these claims simply go away. Wham... 50% savings by the company. Its just how its done, right or wrong.
You just have to fight back.

[oregondiver]

While I feel Mattley's aggravation... and I'm sorry his drysuit won't get paid for... but diving without DAN insurance makes little sense. Maybe their policiies about where the dive begins and ends is utter crap... I can't imagine paying for a chamber ride. I don't just say that because the closest chamber is a medivac away on Oahu ($$$).
-Eric

I have a dumb question about this...
I thought i was reading that the dive accident has to be more than 50 miles away from your residence. So if you are diving locally (ie less than 50 miles from home) and you incur an injury/accident...then it wouldn't cover you. Right?

[spatman]

Matt, was your policy renewed before or after February?

If this change happened in February, and your policy was renewed prior to that under the old handbook, you might be able to argue that angle....

When did the policy change? 2/2010 or 2/2009

Matt's accident was in Jan 2010.

Their online handbook was last updated in February 2010. I don't have previous versions to compare to and verify that this was when the change was made.

If they update their policy once a year in February, and Lynne's accident was covered in April 2009, then it makes sense that the change happened in the last update. If they update multiple times a year then who knows?

i just found my original DAN benefits handbook "revised january 2008". matt, if you need it, let me know and i'll mail it to you.

[Penopolypants]

I have a dumb question about this...
I thought i was reading that the dive accident has to be more than 50 miles away from your residence. So if you are diving locally (ie less than 50 miles from home) and you incur an injury/accident...then it wouldn't cover you. Right?

You have to be 50 miles from home AND out of the country.

I will second what others have said - even with this wonky "in-water, out of the country" stuff, a chamber ride is expensive, and coverage is worth it just for that, if not for the out of country accident portion as well. Many personal insurance companies will cover an out of water accident, but not in-water, and for many policies you're on your own once you're out of the country.

[oregondiver]

I have a dumb question about this...
I thought i was reading that the dive accident has to be more than 50 miles away from your residence. So if you are diving locally (ie less than 50 miles from home) and you incur an injury/accident...then it wouldn't cover you. Right?

You have to be 50 miles from home AND out of the country.

In reading the preferred policy document on DAN's website, the out of country would include non-diving accident related?
"If an Insured Person incurs charges for treatment of Injury due to a non-Diving Accident that occurs
outside his or her Home Country, United States Life will pay the benefits described below subject to the
terms and limitations."

I haven't found where a diver has to be out of country to get the in-water diving accident insurance covered...maybe I am missing something?

[guitarmaker]

Huge bummer Matt. Fighting with an insurance company can be almost as painful as the incident! As a new diver considering DAN, I'm now having second thoughts.

While I feel Mattley's aggravation... and I'm sorry his drysuit won't get paid for... but diving without DAN insurance makes little sense. Maybe their policiies about where the dive begins and ends is utter crap... I can't imagine paying for a chamber ride. I don't just say that because the closest chamber is a medivac away on Oahu ($$$).

Even if you never take a serious enough DCS hit to need the chamber.. being able to call DAN with neurotic and random dive medicine related questions is a major perk.

And if you do bend yourself you can be sure that DAN will be there for you along the way. Imagine getting an ignorant EMT or emergency room doctor (health care here is 3rd world) I want to be able to hand the phone to that caregiver and say "Talk to this person in North Carolina please".

-Eric

Thanks gang - that's why I come here.

[Mattleycrue76]

I chose the title of this thread intentionally. I'm not here to bash DAN as an organization and regardless of the outcome on this I will likely remain a customer, although maybe not at the premium level.
But I am very dissapointed with the way they are handling this situation. The lady I talked to was very offputting and clearly could have cared less about my problem. She literally only knew two sentences: Sir, your insurance only covers dive related accidents" and "Sir if you are unsatisfied with the decision you can write a letter of appeal". To everything I said and everything I asked I got one of those two answers - or a combination of the two.

Like I said, a lot of people might reasonably assume that DAN would cover them in an event such as this. I'm merely letting the world know what to expect.

Penelopy, if the definition of what constitutes a dive has changed it'd be great to know. In the handbook I have it's on page 20.

[Pez7378]

Going back to a handbook from 2008 it doesn't look like their definition of a covered dive or injury as a result of a covered dive has changed. I think the main question here is why Lynne was covered while Matt wasn't.

[Sockmonkey]

Going back to a handbook from 2008 it doesn't look like their definition of a covered dive or injury as a result of a covered dive has changed. I think the main question here is why Lynne was covered while Matt wasn't.

Hey Mattley... what part of your goose poop slide is your medical insurance not covering?

Hey Lynne... what part of your face plant did DAN cover?

-Eric

[LCF]

DAN paid everything my primary insurance didn't -- and we had a $5K deductible.

[CaptnJack]

The out of country 50miles business is for the non-diving accidents. Dive accidents (shark bites ) & DCS are covered regardless of distance. In 2006 (?) my primary was stuck with close to a $12,000 tab for one Table 6 extended chamber ride (which royally sucked btw), DAN covered everything that my primary didn't (around $600 IIRC). So I had zero out of pocket expenses. Virginia Mason billing is seriously wacky though, be prepared to dispute their erroneous & duplicative charges if you ever do go to their chamber.

[dwashbur]

It's time to bankrupt all insurance companies and go to a single payer system :angry:

Fat chance that will happen :angry:

Ohh god... here we go... destroy capitalism and go for government control....thats the solution!

Its just business Matt....For some insurance companies, they routinely deny the first claim by an insured if it is even slightly questionable,..as standard company policy. Half of the people filing these claims simply go away. Wham... 50% savings by the company. Its just how its done, right or wrong.
You just have to fight back.

Um, it's never "just business" to the person who's injured. It's :angry: personal. Imagine buying your life-support equipment from somebody as sleazy as the average insurance company. And when you drown because it wasn't what they said it was, they come back with "hey, it's just business."

I'm not in favor of bankrupting all insurance companies. I am, however, in favor of requiring them to be nonprofit.

[Mongodives]

Thanks for the heads up on DAN not being what "we" think it is. I'll be asking more questions of them and renewing/changing policies while talking to a person, not online or by mail from now on to make sure I get clarity before I pay and insist/make sure that the topics discussed on the phone are in the policy when I get it.

Insurance Non-profit, ???????????????? who would be willing to underwrite anything if there was no hope of profit?
Money makes the world go 'round boys and girls and if you forget that your gonna live your life in perpetual disappointment and not buying much in the way of new dive gear.

[airsix]

Insurance Non-profit, ???????????????? who would be willing to underwrite anything if there was no hope of profit?
Money makes the world go 'round boys and girls and if you forget that your gonna live your life in perpetual disappointment and not buying much in the way of new dive gear.

Actually, there are non-profit insurance companies of a sort. They are called "mutual" insurers. They are in essence owned by the policy holders. Sort of like a credit union for insurance. There are quite a few of them including some of the biggest, but just like any other insurance company they have to be careful about paying claims because higher payouts mean higher premiums for everybody.

Matt, I hope you appeal and win.

-Ben

[CaptnJack]

Thanks for the heads up on DAN not being what "we" think it is. I'll be asking more questions of them and renewing/changing policies while talking to a person, not online or by mail from now on to make sure I get clarity before I pay and insist/make sure that the topics discussed on the phone are in the policy when I get it.

Insurance Non-profit, ???????????????? who would be willing to underwrite anything if there was no hope of profit?
Money makes the world go 'round boys and girls and if you forget that your gonna live your life in perpetual disappointment and not buying much in the way of new dive gear.

Just so its clear, DAN sells insurance underwritten by "American General Life Insurance", a private company.

[ArcticDiver]

Insurance Non-profit, ???????????????? who would be willing to underwrite anything if there was no hope of profit?
Money makes the world go 'round boys and girls and if you forget that your gonna live your life in perpetual disappointment and not buying much in the way of new dive gear.

Actually, there are non-profit insurance companies of a sort. They are called "mutual" insurers. They are in essence owned by the policy holders. Sort of like a credit union for insurance. There are quite a few of them including some of the biggest, but just like any other insurance company they have to be careful about paying claims because higher payouts mean higher premiums for everybody.

Matt, I hope you appeal and win.

-Ben

I thought "Non Profit" was a term of art and referred more to their tax status than to whether they had more income than expense.

[airsix]

I wasn't referring to the notion of tax treatment (hence the "of sorts"). I was referring to the idea of interests being served. In the case of a co-op type structure (credit union, mutual insurance co., utility co-op) the recipients of the service are themselves the owners of the organization. There are no "profits" per say. It's a closed loop. Nothing gets siphoned off and the cash flow is maintained with rate adjustments.

Even non-mutual insurance companies are low-profit operations. There is high competition. They struggle to maintain adequate reserves while keeping premiums and coverage competitive. It gets especially hard at times like these when there is little yield available on the reserves (low interest rates). They need the reserves to be invested and growing or else they must charge higher premiums or pay fewer claims in order to stay above water. I'm not defending them that's just how the math works. They are not this huge evil thing (although they are a nightmare to deal with). They just have to balance the cash flow just like the rest of us. And no, I'm not in insurance or ever have been.

All that said, I'm still on Matt's side. Don't make any mistake about that.