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This May, Vicencia & Buckley Insurance Services, Inc. announced its 10th consecutive renewal with Chartis Insurance Group, an A (XV) rated U.S. insurance company.

“We are proud to offer PADI members the only A (XV) rated U.S. insurer in the recreational dive industry. This means that the most prominent rating agency rates them Excellent in financial strength and the largest in assets,” said V& B President Steve Vicencia, CPCU.

V&B also announced the addition of non-PADI Members to their Group Professional Liability Program. “In the past, only PADI Members were eligible for the Group Professional Liability Program, but now if a PADI Member store or resort has other affiliated instructors or divemasters, we can accommodate them”, said Michele Vicencia Jondle, CIC Senior Vice President at V&B.

“The PADI-endorsed insurance programs offer coverage and benefits that others do not offer,” added Steve Vicencia. “For example, in our store program we now offer:
· Contingent Professional Liability. This provides added protection to the store for Professional claims if an instructor’s insurance is not valid;
· No Coinsurance Penalties on Property Claims. This means that you are not penalized for partial losses if you are intentionally or unintentionally under insured;
· Tenants Liability that includes water damage, explosion, smoke, and fire damage. Others include only fire. This means that other policies only cover fire if you damage your landlord’s building. Our policy covers explosion, water damage and smoke damage in addition to fire. Also, I’ve seen policies with only a $50,000 limit for this important coverage."

Vicencia added, "Our Professional Liability Program offers:
· Coverage for denial of training due to medical or disability reasons. This means you are covered if you get sued for denying your services because of a customer’s medical condition or disability. And yes this does happen.
· No general standards warranty, except for Introductory Dives. This means if your policy has wording that says you must follow your agency standards to be covered, then your coverage is severely restricted;
· Prior acts with uninterrupted coverage from any carrier. This means that if you switch insurers you could lose coverage for some or all of your prior teaching and supervision activities. Our policy provides prior acts coverage back to 1992 as long as you have uninterrupted coverage with any insurer;
· Unlimited defense costs. We have seen policies where there is a limit to the amount of defense costs the insurer will pay. Our policy has unlimited defense costs.”

“This is just a sample of what we offer that others do not,” finished Vicencia. “Dive center owners, instructors and divemasters should read their policies, especially the endorsements, and see what is not covered. If they have questions, we’ll be happy to assist them.”

V&B also announced the continuation of their Green Initiative.

“This is the third year of our Green Initiative, and we will continue to provide policy wording and certificate documents electronically to PADI Members,” said Michele Vicencia Jondle. “We continue to mail ID cards to individual professional members, and we provide hard copy documents for those PADI Members that require it.”

“We are very pleased with our partnership with V&B," said Al Hornsby, Sr. Vice President, PADI Worldwide. “Their dedication to PADI and PADI Members is a major benefit to PADI. We appreciate their honesty, integrity and support of PADI and our members.”

For questions or more information, contact Steve Vicencia at (800) 223-9998 or at [email protected]