Gap Year Diving Insurance | Divemaster and Instructor Internships

Travel Insurance for your Gap Year in Koh Tao, Thailand

On our neighboring island of Koh Samui there are a number of world class international hospitals. Even the state run hospitals are good standard, so getting quality medical attention isn't difficult if you need it. However, as non-Thai nationals, it's possible to incur big bills for healthcare, especially in the international hospitals which cater for wealthy Thai's, tourists and ex-pats.

Although it's not mandatory to have travel insurance, it's certainly a good idea. In the unlikely event that you became unwell or were involved in an accident, having decent travel insurance means you won't have to worry about expensive hospital fees. Also if you are admitted to hospital, as soon as it's evident that you have insurance you'll instantly be granted the best possible care.

Similarly if you are bringing valuables with you (digital camera, laptop, mobile phone etc), although the chances of loosing, damaging or getting them stolen is very low, having travel insurance means you won't need to worry if something unfortunate does happen.

For the amount it costs to take out a travel insurance policy, it's not worth taking the risk of not having it.

Scuba Diving Insurance Options

With proper training, scuba diving is a very safe activity, with very low accident rates compared to almost all other sports. Each time we dive, we're planning our bottom time and depth profile to stay well within conservative limits, and always adhere to safe diving practices such as diving with a buddy, maintaining a slow ascent rate, using properly maintained scuba equipment etc.

In the extremely unlikely event that you did suffer an injury from diving, it's likely that the cost of treatment would be considerable, so again it's wise to make sure that you have an insurance policy which covers scuba diving. During your scuba diving internship, you'll be making scuba dives down to a maximum depth of 30m. Many travel insurance policies aimed at gap year travelers include cover for scuba diving, so with a bit of research you can tie up your travel and scuba diving insurance in a single policy.

If you're concerned and are looking for extremely comprehensive scuba diving insurance, take a look at the DAN Europe website (Divers Alert Network). DAN are actively involved in researching and progressing safety standards in scuba diving, and offer a range of insurance policies for professional and non-professional scuba divers. DAN is the choice for many PADI Divemasters and Dive Instructors actively working in diving.

If you do browse the DAN website, you'll also see that in addition to personal-accident type policies DAN provides professional liability insurance. If you plan to work in scuba diving, many parts of the world require Divemasters and Scuba Diving Instructors to have their own professional liability insurance - especially in some countries which have 'compensation cultures'. In Thailand, professional liability insurance isn't required for dive professionals, but again it's not a bad idea if you're serious about making a career in scuba diving.

For your information, since Simple Life Divers opened back in 2003, we trained many, many divers and maintain an excellent safety record, with no serious accidents.