Month: April 2009

It was the late 1980s and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“USEPA”) was conducting Potentially Responsible Party (“PRP”) Searches at landfills throughout the United States. The Superfund had been recently created and there was money to fund this investigative effort so that large corporate “polluters” could be identified and advised of their liability for the property damage their release of pollutants had caused.  Springing up alongside the USEPA’s efforts were the efforts of defense attorneys to enter the administrative law arena to defend their clients against allegations that they either generated or transported pollutants that were released to a waste site or that they owned or operated a site at which pollutants had been released. Continue reading “Small Is A Better Fit: The New Age of Insurance Archeology”

Doing insurance archeology for fifteen years, I have noticed that a good percentage of our clients don’t understand why the insurance companies just won’t reveal their policy histories when asked. I usually remark that if the insurers just volunteered insurance information, guys like me would not have jobs. However, I also am usually asked two related questoins: (1) “Does the insurance company have a duty to disclose coverage?” and (2) “Since insurers keep old policy files, why don’t they voluntarily do policy searches for their insureds?” Continue reading ““It’s my Policy and I want it Now””