This property has a documented history as a gasoline service station going back to 1957. 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 contamination at this site is explicitly attributed to service station operations conducted from 1957 through 1975 — not a discrete spill event — placing it squarely within the type of slow, ongoing release that occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies issued before 1986 were written to cover and had no effective exclusion for. Operations began nearly three decades before that threshold, meaning multiple policy years of pre-1986 CGL coverage likely attached during the contamination's formative period. The documented remediation trail — investigation, long-term planning, soil excavation, and groundwater monitoring — represents expenditures that historical carriers who issued policies during that operational window 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.