This property has a documented history as a gasoline service station going back to 1949. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could fund a cleanup — and recover costs already spent.

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.

The contamination here — leaded gasoline, BTEX, and lead — originated from underground storage tanks that were active and then abandoned more than three decades before 1986, the year occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies stopped reliably covering pollution claims. The presence of tetraethyl lead is itself a pre-1986 marker: leaded gasoline was phased out of consumer use well before 1986, confirming the contamination source is tied to that historical operational window. Documented remediation expenditures at this site — UST removal, planned soil excavation, capping, and a multi-year monitoring program — represent costs that historical carriers whose policies were in effect during those mid-twentieth-century operations may be obligated both to recover and to fund going forward.

Restorical's role is to locate viable historical policies, determine whether a successful coverage claim is possible, and assist our clients and their legal counsel to obtain insurance coverage. Restorical then manages the claim, including accounting, to ensure the cleanup is funded in a timely manner.