This property has a documented history as a dry cleaning facility going back to 1948. Historical insurance policies issued during those prior operations and through 1986 could recover the cleanup costs already paid.

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.

Dry cleaning operations at this property began nearly four decades before 1986, the year occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies stopped reliably covering pollution liability in Washington. PCE and TCE are precisely the class of solvents — released slowly and diffusely into soil and groundwater over years of operation — that pre-1986 CGL policies were written to address, without the pollution exclusions that would later foreclose those claims. The documented remediation costs here — chemical oxidation treatment across multiple injection wells, years of monitoring, and planned soil excavation — represent expenditures that historical carriers whose policies were in force during those pre-1986 operational years may be obligated to recover.

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.