This property has a documented history as a gasoline service station going back to 1940. Historical insurance policies issued during operations at this property 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.

Gasoline operations at this property began more than four decades before 1986, when occurrence-based Commercial General Liability policies carried no effective pollution exclusion. The groundwater contamination documented here — benzene, petroleum hydrocarbons, and lead — traces directly to decades of UST operations that predate the 1986 policy shift. Remediation expenditures spanning years of dual-phase extraction and associated monitoring represent costs that historical carriers who issued CGL policies during the 1940s-through-1986 operational window may still be obligated to cover.

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.