During the winter time, I’ve seen a blast of advertisements from dive stores and training agencies wanting you to become a dive professional. PADI even has the Go Pro program. PADI has a competition to see who can certify the most dive pros. While I have gotten a lot of enjoyment from teaching scuba diving classes here in the Chicago area, there are quite a few topics that I wished someone explained to me before I even thought of signing up for my Divemaster class. So if you are thinking about becoming a scuba diving professional, think about the following things first.
You are personally liable – When I went through my PADI IDC, the course director did discuss liability. However, it wasn’t strongly stressed. When you are responsible for the safety of other divers, and an accident happens, you can loose your home, kid’s college savings, and anything else scumbag lawyers will try to get their hands on. If you want to be a dive pro, you need to meet with a lawyer and get yourself setup as some kind of corporation. This way, if you are ever sued, your personal assets will remain secured. If you ever decide to quit teaching, then you’ll still have to keep liability insurance until the statute of limitations is up. Here in Illinois, that is 7 years as an adult. So if I teach a 10 year old to dive, then I quit, I have to keep insurance for 15 years after just in case that 10 year old ever has an accident. This is one reason why I no longer teach anyone younger than 15 years of age.
Your non-diving skills aren’t worth jack – During my IDC, the course director kept saying that if you can bring other skills to the table, it will make you more employable to a dive store owner. Bullcrap!!!! I say. If you read my About page, you’ll see that I have a masters degree in computer science. I worked for one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the world. My software is still in use by millions of people around the world. When I worked for my first dive store, I offered to help keep his web site updated. I was told I didn’t know anything and that he would do it. Hmm… Masters degree versus high school diploma? Yeah, I didn’t know anything. I got the same response with dive store #2 when I offered to help out with advertising and marketing. MBA vs. high school diploma. Same result. The truth is, even if you have other tangible skills, the chances are slim that a dive store will employ you because of them.
You will lose money – I can’t stress this enough to people who ask me about becoming a scuba instructor. It will take you years just to get the initial investment of your IDC back. There are two reasons for this; 1) you have to pay for liability insurance and agency fees annually. and 2) you won’t make much money teaching. If you are on a dive stores insurance policy, you’ll probably pay between $200-$300 annually for insurance. If you are an independent instructor, like me, you’ll shell out $500-$600 annually. Agency fees will run around $200. Let’s look at #2. When I worked at dive stores, the most I made was $25 per student for open water courses and $15 per student for pool work. It cost me about $500 a year for insurance and PADI dues. So, I had to teach about 20 students a year before I could make any money. Now this doesn’t include recouping what I paid for my IDC and IE. Then there was my own personal expenses to keep my gear in working order and gas to drive to the quarry. All in all, I had to teach around 40 students a year just to break even. The only benefits I got working at the dive stores was a 10%-20% discount on gear and free air fills.
While I love teaching scuba diving, it is a lot of work. Your stress levels will increase. In order to even make a little bit of money, I’ve had to increase my prices significantly. This has made it even harder to break even. The dive store down the street charges $250 for their open water class while I’m charging $1,000. Think many people are calling now? While teaching diving has brought me great pleasure, I’ve had to put off some great dives because I was teaching. If scuba diving is your passion and something you love to do, then just go and do it. Worry about teaching diving after you’ve gotten a few years of enjoyment out of our wonderful underwater world.
About Duane Johnson
Good food for thought. Money is a big reason why I’ve stayed recreational. I can’t imagine why I would want to turn professional.
Man, that losing money thing is so true. When I got my OWSI thru PADI a year and a half ago, people (non-divers) were like, “great! now you can start getting back some of the money you’ve spent on gear!”. Yeah right! I’ll start calculating that as soon as I make up the $900 a year I pay in insurance and agency fees just to be allowed to teach, and then the several thousand in training and testing to get my instructor rating in the first place.
That being said, I do really love teaching and I’m glad I did it.
Great posting – definitely good food for thought!
What liability to divemasters have, versus an IDC instructor? I’m considering pursuing DM certification – more for the challenge & accomplishment, than anything else, with no intention of teaching.
Hi Derek,
DM’s have almost as much liability as instructors. As a Divemaster, you are still responsible for student safety. If the instructor gets sued, there is a good chance you’ll be sued as well. If you’re not thinking about becoming an instructor, don’t worry about becoming a DM. Unless you really like helping out with students.
So is this article trying to warn those who are planning to pursue a scuba diving profession? Well thank you Sir for the clear and straight to the point issues you have presented. I am sure upon reading this many are already thinking of another profession to pursue (lol).
Hi Jeremy, not really trying to pursued anyone from becoming a dive pro. They just need to know what to expect and be ready for if they do become a scuba pro.