‘USA’ Swimming’s ‘United States’ Sports Insurance Company – in Barbados — Goes Into ‘Run-Off Mode’

by Irvin Muchnick

We’ve written extensively about USA Swimming’s captive reinsurance subsidiary, the United States Sports Insurance Company, domiciled in sunny Barbados. Offshore reinsurance is only one piece of this criminal organization’s irregular and fraudulent operations –now under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But Bruce Stratton, USA Swimming’s board president, says we won’t much longer have to kick around the sleazy image of a set of books, shielded from American regulation, stuffed in a file cabinet in the Caribbean.

USSIC, Stratton said in a public announcement earlier this month, “has been a huge success story” since its formation in 1988, saving “USA Swimming many millions of dollars.” However the new “director of risk management,” George Ward, has been able to obtain liability insurance “on the open market at a very attractive price and there was no longer a need to have USSIC currently provide our primary liability insurance coverage.”

USSIC needs to remain in existence to handle any claims for occurrences prior to January 1, 2014, “and will continue to operate in what is known as a ‘run-off’ mode,” Stratton said:

“Knowing these changes were going to take place, USA Swimming, together with USSIC, engaged a firm to provide an evaluation of the best way to utilize USSIC as we go forward.  The recommendation was to continue to operate USSIC, but to do so by moving it from Barbados to Washington, D.C. Although there are pluses and minus for making the move, the benefits far outweigh the negatives.  Some of the more important benefits are: 

1. Reduction in costs for operating the company

2. The elimination of separate tax filings

3. Increased efficiencies in operating in the United States as opposed to Barbados

4. Better access to legal advice with respect to operation of the company”

FURTHER READING:

USA Swimming’s International Sex Abuse Insurance Scam — First Five Parts of Our Series, As a Single Post