Yes — they cover different risks. Dive insurance covers chamber treatment and evacuation; travel insurance covers cancellation, delays, baggage and non-diving medical costs.
These are two separate products and you want both
Dive insurance, such as DAN or DiveAssure, covers the diving-specific risks: hyperbaric chamber treatment, emergency evacuation from a remote site, dive-related medical care and, on some policies, lost or damaged dive equipment. Standard travel policies almost universally exclude these.
Travel insurance covers everything else: trip cancellation before departure, curtailment, missed connections, flight delay, lost or delayed baggage, theft, and non-diving medical treatment abroad. Given that liveaboard cancellation terms typically forfeit 50 to 100 percent of the trip price inside 60 days, the cancellation cover alone justifies the premium.
What to check in the small print: that recreational scuba to your planned depth is covered rather than excluded as a hazardous activity, that the policy covers the whole trip length, that baggage cover is high enough for your dive and camera gear, and that emergency evacuation limits are realistic — $100,000 or unlimited, not $10,000.
Buy travel insurance at the moment you pay your deposit, not a week before departure. Cancellation cover only applies to events that were unforeseeable when you bought it, which is exactly the reason to buy it early. Most operators now require proof of dive insurance at check-in.
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