This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility going back to 1905. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could fund a cleanup.

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 property began more than eighty years before 1986, with a storage tank on-site since at least 1917 and successive manufacturing uses through mid-century. Occurrence-based CGL policies issued to the laundry, the pipe manufacturer, or other operators across that long pre-1986 window carried no effective pollution exclusion under Washington law and remain potentially enforceable. The gasoline-range hydrocarbons confirmed in soil and groundwater here — attributable to past on-site activities and an incompletely remediated adjacent source — represent exactly the slow, historically rooted contamination those policies were designed to address, and the cleanup costs the property owner faces going forward could plausibly be funded by historical carriers whose policies were in force when contamination first occurred.

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.