Environmental Due Diligence
Discovering that your property is contaminated has effects beyond the obvious expenses of a cleanup, which alone can reduce your profits and affect cash flow. |
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| Specializing in assessment of Environmental risk |
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You may be sued by tenants claiming adverse health reactions or revenue loss as a result of the pollution; face large workers compensation claims from employees who are exposed to the contaminants; or suffer from adverse community response to the news of the pollution.
In these instances, insurance can reduce your loss, by paying the cleanup costs entirely or capping previously estimated costs. It can also respond to third party claims from tenants, abutters, and others, as well as replace or shore up a personal or corporate indemnity. But beware. In almost every case, an off-the-shelf product is woefully inadequate. This is specialized insurance that requires an expertise most brokers simply do not have. This leaves them - and you - at the mercy of insurance underwriters.
For more than 19 years, members of our staff have dealt with environmental risks and their impacts, and have successfully placed programs tailored to the risks they are intended to cover. We have also shepherded several large claims through the insurance system. Some examples of our successes include:
Environmental Success:
- We designed and implemented a multi-year year pollution legal liability policy to replace the personal indemnification of the owner to the purchaser of the property. The policy was tailored to meet a Midwestern state's requirements for voluntary cleanup of a Brownfield site and provide full cleanup in anticipation of a Phase II study. The project required a review and comparison of all products on the market, identification of problem areas, and an understanding of prevailing state and federal regulations. We negotiated new coverages and drafted endorsements to evidence the enhancements, and addressed the concerns of the lending institution pending sale of property and subsequent assignment of policy to buyer.
- On behalf of a large residential developer, we designed and implemented an environmental insurance program, including cost cap and pollution legal liability cover, to facilitate the development of a multi-use housing project at a major brownfield site in New England. The policy was crafted to alleviate lender and investor concerns and enhance the marketability of the individual units. During development of the site, significant contamination was discovered. The insurance policies paid almost $1 million towards the cost of the cleanup.
- We designed a Wrap Up environmental policy for the National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Center Project in Bethesda, Maryland. This entailed identification and evaluation of risk, negotiating policy terms with multiple insurance carriers, and providing recommendations on the basis of cost-effectiveness as well as the effectiveness of the coverages offered. The policy was tailored to interface smoothly with the construction wrap up and professional liability programs.
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