Insurance...the Life kind???

[johnm]

I have Allstate and it will cover cave diving after 2 years. But, I had the same problem trying to find life ins. My policy is for 500,000 and it is very reasonable (whole life).

[jammer]

As stated before does DAN offer legit life insurance?

[dgschott]

Were you caved diving before you applied for the insurance? If you were, did you say so on your application? I would bet if you think your Allstate insurance will cover you after 2 years, you had an insurance agent tell you to lie on the app and you will be covered after the incontestability period. Or maybe your agent just didn't ask to make the sale, but either way, you better watch yourself on that one. The 2 year comment is regarding the incontestability period which doesn't cover fraud.

I have Allstate and it will cover cave diving after 2 years. But, I had the same problem trying to find life ins. My policy is for 500,000 and it is very reasonable (whole life).

[SeaLevelScuba]

Nationwide placed a limit on ours at 130' and no cave diving. You would think with an office in the heart of cave counry they would understand the safety record among cave diving better than anyone.

It seems the questioning was abit backwards, my wife gets a better rate than I. She dives and only does about 30-50 dives a year, I do 200+ a year and have considerable more training, seems odd but thats the way life (insurance) is.

[cavediver256]

Riddle me this, why would they insure anyone who drove a vehicle on the highway and not insure cave divers??? We cave divers stand a better chance of dying in a fiery crash on the highway than dying in a cave....

[dgschott]

I would imagine there a couple of reasons. First - They don't have a lot of information on diving and especially cave diving. They know it is risky, and you're probably more likely to get killed in a cave diving accident vs. disabled. The one thing insurance companies hate the most is the unknown. If you ever get a chance to take a peak at the Suisse Re underwriting manual I would highly recommend it. Good luck picking it up, though. It literally has everything you could imagine. For example, if you have had a kidney stone, they know that will take a couple months off of your average life expectancy.

Second, the risks are additive. We as cave divers (or I imagine most of us) are driving PLUS cave diving, so our total risk is higher then that of a normal highway driver. Since they may not know the exact numbers because there isn't a large enough sampling size or data to cover cave diving, they just add a flat extra per thousand on depending on the individual underwriter.

Remember - Almost all insurance companies in the US use the Suisse Re underwriting standards and they pay (I believe 5) re-insurers to cover them. The re insurer audits the life insurance company on occasion and if they feel that the life insurance company is being too liberal on their underwriting, they will increase the expense to the life insurance company for their re-insurance. While individual insurance companies have some capability of the underwriting decision, they have to make sure that the re insurers will be ok with those decisions so they don't end up paying extra for their re-insurance.

Riddle me this, why would they insure anyone who drove a vehicle on the highway and not insure cave divers??? We cave divers stand a better chance of dying in a fiery crash on the highway than dying in a cave....

[chilldive]

I've been wondering about this myself, so after reading the posts on this topic I decided to check into it. I have life insurance thru my employer. With a little extra $ I throw at it, it covers me for 3 times my annual salary. Not too bad. Anyway, as mentioned earlier on this thread, since it's thru my employer, there's no questions asked. I checked and I'm covered. Just that simple.

Nice to know. My wife still wasn't too excited about hearing that - she doesn't like to talk about it at all. But I feel better being responsible enough to make sure my family is taken care of in the event of my loss, whatever the reason. With the life insurance and other assets I've setup, if I die, they'll have enough to cover all debt with plenty to spare. And since my wife works, she'll be able to continue to live a nice lifestyle.

Everyone who does this sport and has a family should do their due diligence to insure their family is set in the event of an unfortunate exit from this world - whether it be cave diving or just driving down the road. Glad to see many are already doing this or looking into it.

[karst.window]

Good job "chill". That was the whole point of my first message... Everyone should call their insurance rep and make sure you are covered. Then assess your level of debt and make your own decision as to whether or not it's worth the extra cost. In the event of an accident there really aren't words to describe the additional stress this could put your family through.

[Hammerhead Ferrari]

Wow, I certainly didn't expect all this chatter on what I thought would barely even get a response. That is exactly why I asked, I own my own business which uses expensive equipment that wears out routinely, and of course with that comes the overhead of debt, which I do not want to leave my family to deal with in the unfortunate event I make an error I cannot solve-I'm human. My financial life insurance will cover my debt, but I am the primary income earner and I would like to know my family doesn't have to take a major lifestyle hit, which is what I'm looking to cover for them.
Thanks for all the information, and I hope I possibly woke some others up to the fact that hey may not be covered while cave diving.

[Steve7]

I have found one that omitted the scuba question all together. Now if you race,hang glide, moutain climb, bungee or have a private pilots license they have a problem, but they totally left out scuba so you can get over $1,000,000 of level term life 10,15, or 20 year. It is not a convertble plan but will give you some extra coverage. We also know getting to the dive maybe more dangerous than the dive.

Steve