This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility going back to 1960. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could fund a cleanup — and recover costs already spent.
This property was purchased by Verbeek Wrecking in 1956, with automobile salvage operations — fluid draining, crushing, and metal shearing — beginning in the early 1960s. The site also housed an 8,000-gallon waste oil underground storage tank and received contaminated fill from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. Cleanup under the Voluntary Cleanup Program ran from at least 2007 through 2011 and included removal of multiple USTs, extensive soil excavation totaling tens of thousands of cubic yards and tons of contaminated material hauled off-site, on-site bioremediation, and dewatering of over 79,000 gallons of impacted groundwater. Monitoring remains ongoing. That history could support an insurance cost recovery claim against carriers who issued insurance policies 40+ years ago.
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.
Contamination at this property stems from automobile wrecking and salvage operations that ran continuously from the early 1960s — more than two decades before 1986, when occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies still carried no effective pollution exclusion in Washington. The scale of documented remediation expenditures here — mass soil excavation, tank removals, bioremediation, groundwater recovery, and long-term monitoring — represents costs the historical carriers who wrote CGL policies during that operational window may be obligated both to reimburse and to fund as cleanup continues.
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.
What We Look For
- Historical insurance policies (pre-1986)
- Policy numbers, carrier names, and coverage periods
- Connection between contamination timing and policy period
- Evidence linking cleanup obligation to insured activity
What We Deliver
- Historical Coverage Chart
- Trigger Analysis & Property/Policy Nexus
- Coverage strategy with recommendations
- Insurance funding for your remediation
- Claims Management & Forensic Accounting
The Restorical Proven Process
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Contact UsThis analysis is preliminary and based on publicly available records. Restorical Research is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.