I have read this thread with no little interest. Mostly, I have seen how misplaced anger and lack (or ignorance?) of accurate information turns into a free-for-all with no new or useful information generated. Since no one higher up has offered to enlighten any of you, I guess I will try.
The board knew in late October that because of recent claims history, our former insurance carrier had raised our premium about 700%. With a lot of scrambling, phone calls and negotiating, our ED was able to find one insurer that could write a policy for USMS that included open water events. And did not cost all of our reserves for a one year premium. It did have a bunch of strings attached, such as propeller guards.
The OW sanctioning task force had little time and was under considerable pressure to pull together guidelines that were essentially dictated to USMS by the insurer. Passing on part of the insurance premium that is exclusively OW dedicated is just a business decision. Remember, OW does not pay any extra to hold OW practices or clinics, those are covered under another part of the insurance policy. Only sanctioned events have the $1800 special premium, of which USMS eats $800 and passes on $1000 to the sanctioning LMSCs.
None of you posting to this thread can appreciate just how close USMS came to being a virtual organization at the beginning of 2013, with no insurance to cover any of our operations, sanctions or members. It would have been very easy to cut OW loose and save USMS $135,000. But USMS has had a very keen interest in building OW for the last 4 years, and did not ever consider shutting down that branch of the business. The gratitude shown for this hard work and dedication are an exodus of sanctioned events.
I actually think there has been a good amount of information shared on this thread in between the emotional. No... it wasn't always the most civil, but no one has run home crying.
Since I received the first notice in December about the pending changes to the USMS OW sanctioning process, I have spent hundreds of hours dealing with this situation. My first actions were attempts to comply with the new regulations without any regard to additional costs. Only after it became obvious to me that there is absolutely no way that 8 Bridges could comply did I look for an alternative insurance situation. I imagine many of my friends here have also put in a lot of hard work with that same objective. This thread was started by a swimmer frustrated by the fact that a perennial favorite OW event was cancelled. On the Alcatraz thread, Mermaid also grieves over the inability to work with the addition fees. You do me and my fellow event directors a disservice by suggesting this "exodus" is simply a matter of convenience.
I think we all appreciate the work USMS has done to make OW safe starting with hosting the OW Safety Conference in March of 2011.
USMS took a measured approach.
links to USA Swimming and USMS safety docs for comparison:
www.usaswimming.org/.../Open Water Review Commission Recommendations.pdfwww.usms.org/.../owgto_safety_objectives.pdf
I have read this thread with no little interest. Mostly, I have seen how misplaced anger and lack (or ignorance?) of accurate information turns into a free-for-all with no new or useful information generated. Since no one higher up has offered to enlighten any of you, I guess I will try.
The board knew in late October that because of recent claims history, our former insurance carrier had raised our premium about 700%. With a lot of scrambling, phone calls and negotiating, our ED was able to find one insurer that could write a policy for USMS that included open water events. And did not cost all of our reserves for a one year premium. It did have a bunch of strings attached, such as propeller guards.
The OW sanctioning task force had little time and was under considerable pressure to pull together guidelines that were essentially dictated to USMS by the insurer. Passing on part of the insurance premium that is exclusively OW dedicated is just a business decision. Remember, OW does not pay any extra to hold OW practices or clinics, those are covered under another part of the insurance policy. Only sanctioned events have the $1800 special premium, of which USMS eats $800 and passes on $1000 to the sanctioning LMSCs.
None of you posting to this thread can appreciate just how close USMS came to being a virtual organization at the beginning of 2013, with no insurance to cover any of our operations, sanctions or members. It would have been very easy to cut OW loose and save USMS $135,000. But USMS has had a very keen interest in building OW for the last 4 years, and did not ever consider shutting down that branch of the business. The gratitude shown for this hard work and dedication are an exodus of sanctioned events.
I actually think there has been a good amount of information shared on this thread in between the emotional. No... it wasn't always the most civil, but no one has run home crying.
Since I received the first notice in December about the pending changes to the USMS OW sanctioning process, I have spent hundreds of hours dealing with this situation. My first actions were attempts to comply with the new regulations without any regard to additional costs. Only after it became obvious to me that there is absolutely no way that 8 Bridges could comply did I look for an alternative insurance situation. I imagine many of my friends here have also put in a lot of hard work with that same objective. This thread was started by a swimmer frustrated by the fact that a perennial favorite OW event was cancelled. On the Alcatraz thread, Mermaid also grieves over the inability to work with the addition fees. You do me and my fellow event directors a disservice by suggesting this "exodus" is simply a matter of convenience.
I think we all appreciate the work USMS has done to make OW safe starting with hosting the OW Safety Conference in March of 2011.
USMS took a measured approach.
links to USA Swimming and USMS safety docs for comparison:
www.usaswimming.org/.../Open Water Review Commission Recommendations.pdfwww.usms.org/.../owgto_safety_objectives.pdf
