This property has a documented history as a industrial and manufacturing facility predating 1986. 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.

PCBs were banned from manufacture in the United States in 1979, placing this transformer's operational origin well before that date — and squarely within the era when occurrence-based CGL policies had no effective pollution exclusion. The contamination mechanism here — a slow, long-duration release through a corroding transformer casing — is precisely the type of continuous pollution event that pre-1986 carriers remain obligated to address. With approximately 1.5 cubic yards of impacted soil still on site and additional removal work pending, historical policies in effect during the transformer's pre-1979 service life may fund both recovery of past cleanup expenditures and the remediation work that remains.

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.