This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility going back to 1964. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could recover the cleanup costs already paid.
Fletcher General Construction operated from this Seattle property for approximately 30 years beginning around 1964, running construction, remodeling, and repair projects for industrial and commercial clients. The site housed three underground storage tanks — a 6,000-gallon gasoline tank, a 600-gallon tank, and a 10,000-gallon diesel tank — installed to fuel the company's own equipment. Cleanup under Ecology's Standard Cleanup program included excavation and removal of all three USTs, over-excavation of contaminated soil for off-site disposal, and repeated groundwater pumping from the excavation areas. The site has received a No Further Action determination. 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.
Petroleum contamination at this property traces to underground storage tanks installed around 1976 and operated through a period when Fletcher General Construction would have carried occurrence-based CGL policies — coverage that, for a 30-year construction firm fueling its own fleet, likely spanned continuous policy years from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s. The documented remediation costs — triple tank removal, soil excavation and off-site disposal, groundwater recovery — are the type of environmental expenditures those specific historical policies were written to cover. Historical carriers on risk during Fletcher General Construction's pre-1986 operational decades may still owe indemnity for cleanup costs already incurred.
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.
Recovering Costs from an Older Cleanup
If this site reached No Further Action years ago, the original cleanup expenditures may be difficult to reconstruct. Restorical's forensic accounting team specializes in re-establishing and documenting past cleanup costs — even decades later — to build the strongest possible basis for an insurance recovery claim.
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.