AD 2016 Q4

FROM THE
SAFETY STOP
PERSPECTIVES
NEW INITIATIVES
FOR DIVE SAFETY
By Bill Ziefle
This has been a rewarding and very
productive year at DAN®, and we
are excited to announce several new
programs, products and services that
will directly support our dive safety
mission. We developed a program
to educate new divers about safe diving practices,
expanded our professional membership to include all
dive industry professionals, enhanced our insurance
coverage for entry-level students and launched DAN
Risk Retention Group to provide liability protection for
dive leaders. While many of these initiatives directly
address the safety and security concerns facing dive
professionals, their businesses and their students, the
full impact will be felt by the entire dive community
in the form of increased awareness and an enhanced
culture of knowledge and safety.
First, we developed a program for students and new
divers based on extensive analysis of our medical and
insurance-claims data, which showed that the majority
of dive-related incidents have a root cause in one of
a few fundamental concepts in diving. The Prepared
Diver program addresses these common accident
catalysts with a series of informative and engaging
videos that review the science behind safety guidelines
and provide techniques, tips and best practices
related to each issue. Complementing all entry-level
certification and refresher courses, this program can
be used by instructors to help convey the knowledge
divers need to avoid the most common dive injuries.
To better align our professional memberships with
DAN’s mission, we’ve completely revamped and
expanded the existing programs to include all dive and
aquatic industry professionals — leaders, instructors,
store owners, managers and operators. The new DAN
Professional Membership has been broadened to offer
access to general and professional liability insurance as
well as all DAN first aid and Prepared Diver programs
for individual professionals, students and staff. We
believe it is crucial to provide our members with access
to relevant and valuable educational materials and the
best possible liability coverage to support them as they
continue to educate the dive community and work to
reduce the occurrence of dive accidents.
We significantly enhanced the medical expense
protection available to students of dive professionals
who participate in the DAN Professional Membership
program. During training, all eligible students will
benefit from up to $25,000 in medical expense
coverage for injuries occurring during entry-level openwater
training. This program is a key benefit available
to DAN Professional Members and is provided at no
charge to instructors or students.
In addition, we understand the importance of thorough
and comprehensive coverage for the professionals who
take on the risk of teaching and supervising waterbased
activities. Therefore, earlier this year DAN Risk
Retention Group began offering general and individual/
group professional liability insurance to a select group of
dive professionals. We recently extended these programs
beyond the initial group and hope to soon be able to offer
this coverage to all dive industry professionals. Backed by
reinsurance provided by various Lloyd’s syndicates and
Gen Re, this new DAN program is structured to provide
sustainable and reliable cost-effective solutions for the
dive industry’s liability insurance needs. As with other
DAN subsidiaries, DAN Risk Retention Group is 100
percent owned by DAN, and all profits will be used to
support other DAN dive safety programs.
It is our hope that these initiatives will allow DAN
to take data from our exhaustive analyses of dive
accidents to minimize and prevent future accidents,
thus making diving safer for all.
To learn more about DAN membership, insurance
and dive safety programs, visit DAN.org. AD
12 | FALL 2016