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.

Chrome plating operations at Building 72 generated the spills, trench discharges, and floor leaks that contaminated this site — releases that occurred decades before 1986, when occurrence-based CGL policies still covered pollution claims without an effective exclusion. The remediation costs documented here — hotspot excavation, building demolition, petroleum cleanup, and more than two decades of groundwater and sediment monitoring — are the type of long-duration expenditures those historical policies were designed to fund. Because the Navy's plating operations and underground storage tanks were the identified contamination sources, carriers who insured those operations during the active plating era may still bear obligation for both past and ongoing cleanup costs.

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.