Northwest Dive Club

I am looking at purchasing insurance for my camera, now that I've got one that would cost a pretty penny if something happened to it. There appear to be two major players in the dive gear insurance field - D.E.P.P. and H2Oinsurance (offered by DAN).

Both seem to be similar in price and deductibles, but I noticed one big drawback on the DAN/H2Oinsurance that caught my eye: They will not cover for items dropped overboard or swept overboard, or lost underwater.

I have dropped a camera a time or two, or had the wrist strap come off underwater, or dropped a lens that accidentally snagged while about to giant stride off a boat. To me this exclusion seems pretty big.

Does anyone with D.E.P.P know if they will cover these situations that DAN/H2Oinsurance won't cover? (I found precious little on their website unfortunately)

- Janna

Janna,

I'm not sure about DEPP, but I've had mixed feelings about H20insurance. Their deductible is pretty high ($250 minimum or 10% for a flood, whichever is greater), which makes insuring anything but very expensive gear not worth it. ON the other hand, I had a can light flood like Noah was using it, and after receiving an estimate that was too high to repair, they reimbursed me the full retail amount minus deductible within days.

The best warranty that I've ever had was through Squaretrade.com. The cost is about half of what you would pay for a normal retail warranty and you can purchase addition coverage for a very small dollar amount to cover loss from water damage.

I was just on a dive boat this past week with a woman who said that her UW DSLR rig got swept away on it's maiden dive, and she wasn't able to make a claim. At 5K, she cried the whole rest of the dive on the surface, and I can understand that. Let's all look into this and see what we come up with. I know my credit card covers loss or damage during the first 90 days, and doubles the duration of the warranty, but I doubt loss is covered under warranty and even flooding might not be.

cardiver wrote:The best warranty that I've ever had was through Squaretrade.com. The cost is about half of what you would pay for a normal retail warranty and you can purchase addition coverage for a very small dollar amount to cover loss from water damage.

Have you ever made a claim? If so, was it an easy process?

I haven't had to make a claim but I read some reviews of their service and everything seems above board. They do a lot of business with E bay purchases on new and even on used products. It was so inexpensive to insure my camera for three years that it was a no brainer for me. I think that the original warranty extension was 30 bucks and the water damage added 5.00 to that.