Our client was a school district that owned a large property at the edge of town. However, as the expanding city grew, the property was surrounded by residential, retail and office properties. Due to its large size and excellent location, the property was worth much more to a developer than the school district. So, the client put the property up for sale. Unfortunately, as the site was investigated by a prospective purchaser, a huge amount of pollution was found in the soil. The client had used the property to store and maintain fleet vehicles for 70 years, leading to the site’s extensive contamination.
The client faced two possibilities to pay for the remediation: 1) use the proceeds of the sale or 2) get taxpayer bonding. At this time, we met the client and explained that they had another way to solve this funding problem: historical insurance policies. Through our research, we found many years’ worth of old insurance policies with multiple carriers. As a result, we helped the client to get the coverage to pay for the environmental liabilities.
