DiveHQ
A liability release, often called a waiver, is the document a diver signs before training or diving with your centre. It may matter years after the dive, so the wording, the way it is signed and the way it is stored all deserve care.
What a release is for
A release does three jobs:
- It informs. It tells the diver, in writing, that diving carries risks including serious injury and death, and that dive sites may be far from medical help and a recompression chamber.
- It records acceptance. The diver confirms that they understand those risks and choose to take part.
- It limits claims. Where local law allows, the diver agrees not to bring certain claims against the centre and its staff.
The first two are worth having in any country, even where the third carries little legal weight.
What a release usually covers
- The activities it applies to: courses, guided dives, snorkelling, boat trips, equipment rental or a combination.
- The main risks: decompression illness, lung overexpansion injuries, drowning, marine life, weather, boat operations and equipment failure.
- Distance from medical help and recompression facilities.
- The diver's own responsibilities: following the briefing and the guide's instructions, diving within their training and experience, and telling staff about any change in health or medication.
- A confirmation that the diver has answered the medical questionnaire truthfully and holds the certification they have declared.
- Who is released: the centre, its owners, staff, boat crew and instructors, and the training agency where its form requires it.
- Any limits on the release, such as an exception for gross negligence or wilful misconduct, where local law requires one.
- A severability clause, so that if one clause is found invalid, the rest still applies.
- The law that applies and where any dispute would be heard.
- The signer's name, signature and date, and a parent or guardian's signature where the diver is a minor.
Agency forms and your own release
Training agencies publish their own release forms. PADI's combine a liability release and assumption of risk agreement with a non-agency disclosure, in which the diver acknowledges that the dive centre is an independent business, not an agent of PADI. SSI publishes waiver, release and assumption of risk forms for its programmes.
- For agency courses, use the form your agency's standards require for that course. Agencies issue different forms for different programmes, and some issue regional versions: one PADI release tells centres in European Union and European Free Trade Association countries to use an alternative form.
- For guided dives, boat trips, snorkelling and rental, use your agency's form for certified divers if it has one that fits, or your own release, written for your activities and your country.
- Do not edit an agency form. If its wording does not suit your operation, have your lawyer write a separate release rather than altering the agency's text.
A diver on a course may sign both: the agency's form for the training and your own release for the boat and rental equipment. Keep them as separate documents.
Recording the signature
If a release is ever questioned, you need to show who signed, when, and exactly what they agreed to. A signature on its own shows none of that reliably. Record the following for every release:
| Record | Why |
|---|---|
| The signer's full name, typed or printed | Signatures are often illegible. |
| The date and time of signing | Shows the release was signed before the activity, not after it. |
| Who signed: the diver, or a parent or guardian on their behalf | Needed for minors and for anyone signing for another person. |
| The exact text signed, or a version number that points to it | Releases change. You need the words that person agreed to, not the current version. |
| How it was signed: on paper, on a tablet at the counter, or online before arrival | Relevant if the circumstances of signing are ever questioned. |
| For online signatures, the IP address and a copy or hash of the signed text | Links the signature to a device and to one fixed text. |
Number and date each version of your release. When you change the wording, give it a new version number and keep the old text, because divers who signed the old version agreed to the old words.
Ask divers to sign before they arrive, or at least before the day of the activity. A release read at home a week earlier gives the diver a fair chance to read it and ask questions. One signed in a queue on the jetty, with the engine running, does not.
Minors and guardians
- A parent or legal guardian signs for a diver below the age of majority. That age differs between countries, so check the rule where you operate.
- Record the guardian's name and their relationship to the diver, as well as the diver's name and date of birth.
- Where the diver is old enough to understand the release, ask them to read it too.
- In some places a release signed on a child's behalf carries less weight than an adult's own signature. Ask your lawyer how that applies to you.
- Agency programmes for children have their own forms. Use them.
Keeping signed copies
- Keep every signed release for at least as long as a claim could be brought. Limitation periods depend on the country, and for minors they can start later, sometimes only when the child reaches adulthood. Ask your lawyer and insurer which period to use.
- Store paper releases somewhere dry and locked, filed by date and name, so one form can be found years later.
- For digital releases, make sure you can produce the signed text, the signature record and the date on request, and that the records are backed up.
- Check your insurance policy for its own requirements on releases and record keeping.