Saturday, 14 January 2012

Insurance Nightmares

Many of us travel around everyday and never really give a second thought about insurance. If we travel in our cars they are insured, in a public taxi they are insured, on a bus or train on our daily commute to work they are also insured but what about when you want to go diving in the Similan Islands.

In today's digital world we our now booking our flights, accommodation and activities separately making the travel agent almost redundant, but what they did for us when we booked a package holiday was to include insurance in the price. Today many people think about insurance as a last measure, I've done it myself when on holiday and paid the price but have continued to skip insurance except when I'm doing something classified as extreme sports.

Trips that I've taken which have included things like whitewater rafting, rock climbing and skydiving I made sure my insurance covered me for any possible outcomes, if it didn't I got extra cover. The same can be said of scuba diving in Thailand, okay it's not really extreme, more nirvanaly (is that even a word) pleasant, but standard insurance doesn't cover it.

I did a little research the other day into the cost of using a decompression chamber and the costs shocked me. I was told the normal absolute minimum treatment is five hours and this costs $795/hour, a quick calculation makes this $3,925 for one session. Expensive stuff if you don't have insurance to cover the cost.

This is just a thought for everyone who goes diving or is thinking about in the near future. Insurance is so cheap in comparison, less than $10/day, and gives people peace of mind, well it certainly gives me peace of mind...

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