Your client was injured on a military base in Afghanistan in 2017 while working for a major LOGCAP subcontractor. You pull up the DOL case summaries expecting to find one of the legacy DBA carriers. Instead, the trail leads to Starr Indemnity and Liability Company, a name that barely registered in DBA circles a decade earlier.
This scenario plays out repeatedly in DBA practices today. Starr Indemnity has moved from the periphery of the Defense Base Act insurance market to a central position, picking up employer relationships that once belonged to household names like CNA and AIG. For attorneys conducting carrier identification, understanding this shift is not optional. Filing a claim against the wrong carrier wastes months.
The DBA insurance market has contracted sharply since 2012. Fewer than a dozen carriers write the majority of new DBA policies, down from a broader field in the mid-2000s. Starr's growth tracks directly with this contraction. As established carriers absorbed losses on mandatory government contracts and declined to renew, Starr stepped in with competitive pricing and a willingness to underwrite risk that others avoided.
ClaimTrove's database of 2,454 employer-carrier mappings shows temporal patterns that confirm this trend. Carriers that dominated DBA coverage between 2005 and 2013 appear far less frequently in filings after 2015. Starr's name surfaces with increasing regularity in that same post-2015 window, particularly among defense and logistics contractors operating in high-risk theaters.
Who Is Starr Indemnity and Why Does It Matter for DBA Claims?
Starr Indemnity and Liability Company operates under the Starr Companies umbrella, founded by Cornelius Vander Starr in 1919. The corporate family includes several entities that appear in DBA filings: Starr Indemnity, CV Starr, Starr Insurance Companies, and Starr Surplus Lines. For carrier identification purposes, all of these roll up to the same corporate family, but the specific subsidiary on the policy determines where you file.
Starr Indemnity carries NAIC number 38318. This identifier matters because DBA coverage cards, OWCP filings, and state insurance records all reference NAIC codes. When you see 38318 on a coverage document, you are looking at Starr Indemnity specifically, not one of its sibling entities. Misidentifying the subsidiary can delay claim processing.
Unlike carriers that stumbled into DBA coverage as an extension of general workers' compensation, Starr built a deliberate book of DBA business. The company targeted OCONUS contractors, particularly those supporting military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. This specialization gave Starr underwriting expertise that generalist carriers lacked. It also meant Starr could price risk more accurately in war-zone environments where claim frequency and severity ran far above domestic baselines.
ClaimTrove identifies Starr across multiple federal data sources, including DOL case summaries spanning FY2009 through FY2024, OALJ decisions, and FOIA database results. The carrier appears in both published and unpublished BRB decisions, confirming active involvement in DBA dispute resolution. For a carrier that many attorneys still consider "newer," Starr has a substantial litigation footprint.
What Drove Legacy Carriers Out of the DBA Market?
To understand Starr's rise, you need to understand what happened to its predecessors. The DBA insurance market between 2005 and 2013 operated under a fundamentally different structure. Several major government agencies mandated specific carriers for all OCONUS contractors working under their awards. These mandatory programs concentrated enormous volumes of risk on a small number of insurers.
CNA, operating through its Continental Casualty subsidiary, held mandatory DBA contracts with both the State Department (July 2001 through July 2012) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (December 2005 through September 2013). During this period, every contractor working under State or USACE awards was required to obtain DBA coverage through CNA. The CENTCOM theater-wide extension pushed CNA's exposure even higher. When these contracts expired, CNA had absorbed years of high-severity claims from Iraq and Afghanistan at rates that proved unsustainable. For a deeper look at CNA's trajectory, see our analysis of CNA Continental Casualty's shift from mandatory government DBA carrier to open market competitor.
The State Department attempted to re-solicit its mandatory DBA contract in 2012. Zero carriers submitted bids. That outcome tells you everything about market sentiment. Carriers had seen the loss ratios. They had watched CNA and CIGNA (which held the State mandate from 1991 to 2001) struggle with war-zone claims. No insurer wanted that concentration of catastrophic risk at the rates the government was willing to pay.
This dynamic pushed the market toward open competition, where contractors selected their own DBA carriers. Carriers with appetite for the risk, Starr among them, could price policies individually rather than absorbing an entire agency's portfolio. For more on why carriers leave DBA coverage entirely, see how DBA insurance premiums work and why carriers leave the market.
How Did Starr Indemnity Capture Major DBA Employer Relationships?
Starr's growth in DBA market share followed a specific pattern. As legacy carriers declined to renew policies or priced themselves out of contention, large defense contractors needed alternatives. Starr positioned itself as a specialist willing to underwrite overseas risk at rates that reflected actual actuarial data rather than the inflated premiums carriers demanded after absorbing mandatory-program losses.
ClaimTrove's data shows that Starr holds DBA policies for contractors across multiple LOGCAP generations and OCONUS support contracts. The carrier's 10-digit policy numbers (beginning with 1000) appear in FOIA database results linked to some of the highest-volume DBA employers in the market. These are not small accounts. They represent thousands of covered employees deployed across multiple countries.
The timing matters for attorneys. A contractor that used AIG or CNA in 2010 may have switched to Starr by 2015. If your client's injury falls in the transition window, you could be chasing the wrong carrier for months. DBA policies renew annually, and contractors are not obligated to notify former employees when they change carriers. The only reliable way to confirm the carrier at the time of injury is to check the specific policy period. For background on why these shifts happen and what they mean for your practice, read our guide on why DBA carriers change and understanding temporal shifts in coverage.
Starr's growth also reflects a broader consolidation trend. The number of carriers actively writing DBA policies has shrunk. ClaimTrove tracks 637 carriers authorized by the DOL to write DBA coverage, but only a fraction actively underwrite new policies in any given year. The gap between "authorized" and "active" is enormous, and it continues to widen.
How Many DBA Carriers Are Actually Writing New Policies Today?
The DOL maintains a list of 637 authorized DBA carriers. That number is misleading. Authorization means a carrier has met the DOL's financial requirements to write DBA policies. It does not mean the carrier is actively seeking or accepting DBA business. Many authorized carriers have not written a DBA policy in years.
ClaimTrove's analysis of 4,983 DOL case summary records across FY2009 through FY2024 reveals a striking concentration. A small group of carriers appears repeatedly across employer filings, while hundreds of authorized carriers generate zero DBA claims in any given period. The top carriers by claim volume handle the vast majority of the market. Starr has climbed steadily in this ranking over the past decade.
This concentration creates a practical problem for attorneys. When you identify a carrier name from an older case or filing, that carrier may no longer write DBA coverage. The employer may have moved to Starr, ACE/Chubb, AIG, or one of the other active writers. Checking authorization status alone does not tell you whether the carrier still covers your client's employer. You can see the full breakdown in our analysis of the top 10 DBA insurance carriers and their market share.
For Starr specifically, the carrier's market position has grown through organic wins, not acquisitions. Unlike ACE's merger with Chubb, which created a massive combined DBA book overnight, Starr built its portfolio one employer at a time. Each new relationship represents a deliberate underwriting decision and a contractor that chose Starr over alternatives. Understanding the ACE/Chubb subsidiary structure helps illustrate why Starr's cleaner corporate structure actually simplifies carrier identification.
Why Does Starr's Subsidiary Structure Complicate Identification?
Despite being simpler than some competitors, Starr's corporate family still creates confusion. ClaimTrove's carrier family deduplication engine groups four Starr entities: Starr Indemnity, CV Starr, Starr Insurance Companies, and Starr Surplus Lines. Each entity has different state licenses and writes different coverage lines. A DBA policy could theoretically be issued by any of them, though Starr Indemnity (NAIC 38318) handles the bulk of workers' compensation and DBA business.
Another source of confusion is third-party administrators. Starr, like most DBA carriers, uses TPAs to handle claims administration. When your client receives correspondence from a TPA rather than from Starr directly, the actual carrier identity can be obscured. ClaimTrove's investigation engine specifically detects TPA names and resolves them back to the underlying carrier, preventing attorneys from mistaking administrators like Gallagher Bassett or Broadspire for the actual insurer.
Coverage cards filed with the DOL's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs provide the most direct evidence of carrier identity. These filings list the carrier name, NAIC number, employer, and policy period. ClaimTrove cross-references over 154,000 coverage card records from FOIA database results to match carriers to employers at specific points in time. When Starr appears on a coverage card with NAIC 38318, that is a confirmed, date-stamped relationship.
The challenge is that coverage cards are not publicly searchable. They require FOIA requests or access to compiled databases. Without this data, attorneys are left guessing based on outdated case summaries or hearsay from other practitioners. Starr's growing presence makes this guesswork increasingly risky. Assuming the carrier from five years ago still holds the policy today is a common and costly mistake.
What Should Attorneys Know When Filing Claims Against Starr Indemnity?
Starr operates as a standard DBA carrier under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act as extended by the Defense Base Act. Claims follow the same OWCP filing process as any other DBA carrier. However, there are practical considerations specific to Starr's position in the market.
First, Starr's DBA book is relatively young compared to AIG's or CNA's. Many Starr-covered policies date from 2013 forward. If your client's injury predates that window, Starr is less likely to be the responsible carrier, and you should investigate the predecessor carrier for that employer during the relevant period. ClaimTrove's temporal analysis tracks these transitions across fiscal years.
Second, Starr's growth means the carrier is handling a high volume of active DBA claims. Response times and claims administration practices can vary during periods of rapid portfolio expansion. Attorneys report that Starr's claims handling has professionalized significantly since the carrier first entered the DBA market, but experiences vary by TPA and regional office.
Third, verify the exact Starr entity on the policy. Filing against "Starr Companies" generically will not work. You need the specific subsidiary, typically Starr Indemnity and Liability Company, with the correct NAIC number. The OWCP and BRB require precise carrier identification, and errors delay adjudication.
Finally, check for policy transitions. Large contractors sometimes split DBA coverage across multiple carriers or switch mid-year during contract renewals. ClaimTrove's investigation engine searches 18 federal data sources in parallel to identify every carrier that has been associated with an employer, ranked by temporal proximity to your client's injury date. This prevents the common scenario where an attorney files against a carrier that held the policy six months before or after the actual injury.
ClaimTrove tracks Starr Indemnity across 24+ confirmed employer relationships spanning multiple fiscal years and contract vehicles. If you need to confirm whether Starr is the responsible DBA carrier for your client's employer, run an investigation on ClaimTrove to get carrier identification backed by DOL records, OALJ decisions, FOIA data, and federal contract awards.