Insurance Recovery for Environmental Liability: Navigating Occurrences, Triggers, Exclusions and Covered Damages

Environmental liabilities can potentially be a significant threat to the bottom line.  Insurance coverage is a crucial source for recovery of environmental liability and related costs.

The recovery of insurance to offset the costs of environmental liability can be complex, and policyholders face several hurdles to coverage.  Policyholders must determine which of their policies will respond to the liability.  The number of occurrences can have a major impact on the total recovery.  Because most policies have limits related to occurrences, the definition of occurrence may determine how many times the insurance policy limits will apply to pay for a loss.  Similarly, the number of occurrences may affect the number of deductibles that will apply to a given claim.

Companies and their counsel should consider factors such as foreseeable occurrences, exclusions, trigger issues, and covered damages.  They should also be prepared to challenge insurers that push back and try to allocate expenditures to the policyholder or another insurer general-liability insurance policies as well as specialized policies for environmental impairment liability, pollution legal liability, and remediation cost-cap policies.

Listen as our authoritative panel provides strategies for recovery by policyholders of general-liability insurance policies as well as specialized policies.  The panel will examine the factors that should be considered, including exclusions and triggers, when evaluating insurance policies for recovery.