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Best Practices for Environmental Emergency Response Claims

Environmental emergency response incidents require special attention. What should you expect when the unexpected happens? Here are some best practices for claims professionals handling the aftermath.

 

Environmental emergency responses (EER) come in all shapes and sizes. There are two distinct categories of EER claims: those that have been completed and those that remain active. In this blog, we will discuss the first category. Part 2 will address best practices when managing active EER claims and proactive measures that can be implemented before an EER claim incident occurs.  


About Inactive EER Claims

Compared to active emergency response activities, claims for completed pollution cleanups generally do not involve catastrophic losses and are usually less significant from a financial perspective. This is primarily because catastrophic losses can take days or weeks to address and as such they are reported to insurance carriers before they have reached resolution. For the most part, you can handle the adjustment of these claims in the same manner as typical environmental claims, but with some caveats.


Best Practice #1: Conduct Due Diligence

Investigate the incident. Determine what happened, when it happened, who or what was responsible for it, and to what extent the impacts occurred. It’s also important to determine if or when the incident transitioned to a routine cleanup, since this can impact coverage. Generally, I define the end of an EER as the point when 24/7 work and/or weekend work is no longer performed. With less scrupulous EER contractors it may be necessary to investigate at what point 24/7 response should or could have stopped...[continue reading]

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Contact us with questions:


info@firstenvironment.com

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