This property has a documented history as a dry cleaning facility going back to 1959. 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.

Dry cleaning operations at this property began in 1959 and ran for nearly three decades, spanning the full era in which occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies carried no effective pollution exclusion. The PCE and TCE contamination attributed to those historical operations has already driven more than twenty years of documented remediation expenditure — vapor extraction, large-scale soil removal, and repeated chemical injections. With groundwater monitoring and additional characterization still required, historical carriers who issued CGL policies to the dry cleaner's operators between 1959 and 1986 may be obligated both to recover past cleanup costs and to fund the remediation work yet 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.