This property has a documented history as a bulk fuel distribution terminal going back to 1911. 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.

Petroleum storage and distribution operations at this site date to as early as 1911 — more than seven decades before 1986, when occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies ceased reliably covering pollution claims in Washington. The contamination documented here has been characterized as aged and weathered and tied directly to those historical industrial uses, precisely the kind of long-duration release that pre-1986 CGL policies were written to cover. With substantial remediation costs already incurred and further extraction, capping, monitoring, and restoration work ahead, historical carriers who issued policies during those decades of bulk fuel operations may be obligated both to reimburse past cleanup expenditures and to fund the work still to come.

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.