When traveling to Asia everyone recommends having travel insurance when you come, this is especially true for Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Trying to find the right travel insurance plan can be a daunting exercise, especially if you’re looking for adventures in your vacation travel diet, such as mountain hiking, skydiving, riding 50cc motorcycles, scuba diving, and traveling in small boats. Most vacation travel-specific insurance plans will allow some limited adventure activities, like 14 days of diving, but they do have restrictions and unless you’re an expert, there’s a good chance you could end up in a loophole and be denied. . coverage.

In the US, if you have a job and have group insurance through work, the coverage will most often cover high-risk things that won’t be covered by specialized travel insurance. Group work insurance companies can afford to do this, as the risk is spread over a much larger group, with more people in a class, and most won’t be doing fun stuff! So keeping your regular insurance when you travel, if you can, is a good idea. Most employers, if you are on a gap year, or just on a long vacation, will have a way for your insurance to continue if you pay the premiums. Talk to your HR department about this, they love to talk about stuff like this. If you lose your job, you can also continue insurance under Cobra laws, a great thing to watch closely when you’re telling the boss to stay.

Most people in the diving industry will tell you that DAN Master Insurance or the DAN Preferred plan are the preferred dive-specific policies, as they will cover you regardless of depth. These policies cover evacuations, recompression that can cost up to $25,000, and DAN knows where the recompression chambers are and the fastest way to get you there safely. DAN Insurance will also cover you while on vacation more than 100 miles from home, this includes your evacuation coverage, so you might consider getting it even if you’re not a serious diver. DAN understands the needs of divers better than a regular insurance company as they are a non-profit organization dedicated to diver safety and dive research and a dedicated 24 hour hotline and they can really save your life. life when you need the help of experts, as they have doctors at the end of the line that is used to speak to people in emergencies all over the world, and these DAN policies for the coverage they provide are very cheap for the value you will get . DAN Insurance is intended as secondary coverage, so keeping your work insurance current is a good idea. I have heard of dive companies in the US hiring their instructors as independent contractors and telling them to get DAN insurance to avoid workers’ compensation costs that are awarded to workers covered by the Jones Act.

Credit cards for insurance?

We have seen people being refused travel insurance time and time again by hospitals in South East Asia, especially in Cambodia. Some of the major hospitals like Bumrangard in Bangkok accept it, but for most it is cash only, and then they fill out the form. forms with you for your insurance company to reimburse you which, as you can probably guess, will take a bit of time and, by the way, will usually require you to provide the translation as well, so do it where you are here. instead of bringing it home with a surprise translation bill too. I suggest that everyone bring a credit card, with a lot of limit, and a pin number. Cash is the best thing to have by your side in an emergency, and a credit card is the safest way to carry it. Believe me, the best thing to do in an emergency is to get to Thailand or Singapore, and then return to your home country, or somewhere that understands dive medicine, as quickly as possible, and not having enough money on hand can slow you down. . Some credit cards have evacuation benefits if you are injured while traveling, they may also have some legal help.

Some high-end and travel specialist credit cards will sometimes also have some coverage for other travel related things that can be helpful, like replacing your stuff if you get scammed, not a bad thing to review or consider when applying for a credit card. credit.

At the end of the day, the best insurance is not to get hurt, so please keep your brain turned on and don’t drink too much alcohol. A lot of accidents happen under the influence of alcohol, make sure you are not one of them.