A coverage fight has landed in federal court over defense obligations tied to a child's death at a Hawaii swim meet.
Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Company filed the action on April 1, 2026, in the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii, naming Accredited Surety and Casualty Company and the Oahu Swim League as defendants. The case turns on a question that comes up constantly in the insurance world but rarely gets the attention it deserves: when an event organizer rents a venue and signs an indemnification agreement, whose insurer picks up the tab when something goes terribly wrong?
The underlying facts, as laid out in court filings, are tragic. On May 13, 2023, the Oahu Swim League hosted the Oahu Senior Meet at the Kapolei Aquatic Center, a facility operated by American Renaissance Academy - an independent, co-educational college preparatory school and nonprofit on Oahu. ARA rented the facility to Oahu Swim for the meet. Oahu Swim provided its own lifeguards.
During the event, a minor, Tehani Kealoha, suffered a medical emergency in the pool and later died. In February 2025, the Kealoha family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Hawaii state court against USA Swimming, Oahu Swim League, ARA, and others, alleging negligence, gross negligence, wrongful death, failures in hiring, training, retention, and supervision, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Philadelphia Indemnity, which insures ARA, stepped in to defend the school. But the insurer now argues it should not be the one carrying that weight.
According to the filing, Oahu Swim had signed a facility agreement with ARA before the meet, agreeing to "indemnify, defend and hold harmless ARA and Kapolei Aquatics Center" from demands, losses, and expenses arising out of acts or omissions in connection with the event - with limited exceptions for ARA's own negligence or willful misconduct, latent defects, or force majeure. The agreement also required Oahu Swim to carry a commercial general liability policy with at least $1 million in bodily injury coverage per occurrence and to name ARA as a certificate holder.
Oahu Swim's coverage, according to the filing, falls under a policy issued by Accredited Surety to USA Swimming for the 2023–2024 period. That policy includes a supplementary payments provision stating that, when certain conditions are met, the insurer will defend an indemnitee of its insured where the insured has assumed liability under what the policy calls an "insured contract" - defined as any business contract under which the insured assumes another party's tort liability for bodily injury or property damage.
According to the filing, the defense was tendered to Oahu Swim and Accredited on multiple occasions between late 2023 and mid-2025 - by both ARA's counsel and Philadelphia Indemnity. Each time, Accredited declined on behalf of itself and Oahu Swim.
The case lands squarely at a pain point for the insurance industry. Schools, recreation centers, and nonprofits rent out their facilities to third-party event organizers regularly. The contracts typically include indemnification clauses and insurance requirements. But when a claim hits and the organizer's carrier refuses to step in, the venue owner's insurer can end up shouldering the defense alone - and, as here, may turn to the courts to push back.
No determination has been made on the merits. The case remains in its earliest stages.
