This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility going back to 1940. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could recover the cleanup costs already paid.

Why Historical Insurance Policies May Be Accessible

Pre-1986 Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies were occurrence-based and did not contain an effective pollution exclusion in Washington. If contamination occurred while those policies were active, those historical insurance carriers may still have a legal obligation to fund the cleanup costs, even if the business closed or the property changed hands.

Industrial operations at this site began more than four decades before 1986, the year occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies stopped reliably covering pollution claims in Washington. The contamination documented here — petroleum from leaking underground storage tanks, PFAS from industrial fire suppression foam, PCBs from facility coatings — traces directly to operations conducted under policies that carried no effective pollution exclusion. Historical carriers who issued CGL coverage to the facility's operators during that pre-1986 window may still be obligated to recover the extensive remediation costs already incurred across decades of cleanup work.

Restorical's role is to locate viable historical policies, determine whether a successful cost recovery claim is possible, and assist our clients and their legal counsel to obtain insurance coverage for costs already incurred. Restorical's forensic accounting team works to re-establish and document past cleanup expenditures, ensuring the strongest possible basis for recovery.