{"id":2782,"date":"2022-05-16T21:06:04","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T21:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/estrategist.com\/website\/members\/?p=2782"},"modified":"2022-05-16T21:08:07","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T21:08:07","slug":"quarries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/quarries\/","title":{"rendered":"Quarries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What is a Pollutant?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Any material, substance, liquid, product, etc\u2026 which is introduced into an environment for other than its intended use \/ purpose. In other words, something that ends up where it doesn\u2019t belong. Fresh water, cheese, and milk have all been classified as pollutants by Insurance Carriers under various circumstances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most commercial insureds assume that claims arising from their operations are covered by the general liability policy. However, claims resulting from a \u201cpollution incident\u201d are excluded from most general liability policies, which leaves commercial insureds with gaps in coverage. What pollutants are impacting your business?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Environmental Exposures Impacting Gravel Quarries<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><b>May include, but are not limited to<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Silica;\u00a0 Stormwater runoff;\u00a0 Release of oils\/fuels from equipment;\u00a0 Spills mobile storage tanks;\u00a0 No auditing of waste handling and disposal companies;\u00a0 Natural resource damages;\u00a0 Vapor intrusion;\u00a0 Storage and\/or transportation of raw materials;\u00a0 Business interruption expenses from pollution loss (1<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &amp; 3<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> party);\u00a0 Leaks from hydraulic fluid;\u00a0 Products pollution liability;\u00a0 Raw materials stored onsite;\u00a0 Uncertainties about the historical use and conditions of property;\u00a0 Obsolete and remote equipment storage (bone) yards where contaminants percolate into the soil\/groundwater;\u00a0 Nuisance odors;\u00a0 No emergency response training for employees;\u00a0 Spills and leaks from the storage and handling (loading\/unloading) of materials from vehicles, rail cars, barges\u2026;\u00a0 Improper characterization of hazardous waste\u2026 And more\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Environmental Claim Scenarios<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A gravel quarry provided material for a jobsite, which contained unknown pollutants. The excavation contractor unknowingly spread the contaminated material across a project site. Later during the project, the contamination was discovered and determined to have originated from the material provided by the gravel mine. Project delays, cleanup costs, and 3<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> party property damage claims exceeded $600,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A waste hauler was hired to transport used oil and fluids to a 3<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> party recycling facility. The waste hauler got into an accident which caused the contents of the tanker to be released directly into a creek.\u00a0 Under Federal law (CERCLA) you own your waste from cradle to grave, so the generators of the waste had to pay their apportionment of the $2,000,000 expense for remediation.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the weekend a major thunderstorm destroyed the storm water runoff control system at a quarry, causing the material to flow down grade through neighboring properties, roads, and into a nearby lake.\u00a0 The quarry was responsible for cleanup costs, natural resource damages, and 3<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> party property damage claims, which exceeded $3,500,000.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The concrete secondary containment of a 10,000-gallon diesel aboveground storage tank was cracked. A release from the tank spilled 8,000 gallons into the containment. The diesel seeped into the underlying soils.\u00a0 Total cost for investigation, removal, and disposal exceeded $275,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During a particularly dry spell in the summer, heavy winds allowed silica dust to drift from a quarry into a neighboring community. The liable quarry filed a claim with their GL carrier for the resulting property damage and bodily injury, but the insurer denied the claim, due to the policy\u2019s pollution exclusion. The quarry was ultimately responsible for coving 100% of the loss, which totaled over $1,000,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A quarries tailings piles over several years of being exposed to the elements and rain, percolated into the ground and ground water.\u00a0 The soil contamination plume impacted numerous third parties and the ground water contamination plume impacted both private and municipal water wells.\u00a0 Costs for remediation and other expenses had not been calculated but will be in the millions of dollars.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Benefits of Environmental Liability Insurance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because environmental losses are a severity risk, rather than a frequency risk, most commercial insureds lack the financial strength to self-insure their environmental liabilities. Since every gravel quarry has notable environmental exposures, consideration should be given to the economies of scale afforded with environmental liability insurance as part of your risk transfer strategy, versus self-insuring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Three Overlooked Benefits<\/b><b> of environmental liability insurance:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Defense Costs<\/b><b>:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Environmental liabilities are relatively new and very litigious.\u00a0 Even if you do nothing wrong you can still get named in a suit and have to expense defense costs i.e. legal fees, environmental investigations, etc.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><b>Claim Management<\/b><b>:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All policies come with specialists to assist you in handling a claim.\u00a0 Who is in charge of communications, public relations, emergency response, government compliance, financial management, third party claims for bodily injury, property damage, natural resource damages\u2026.?<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Third Party Liability<\/b><b>:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The majority of the time the cost to clean up the environmental problem\/s is far less than the associated claims that come in from third parties for bodily injury, property damage and business interruption.\u00a0 You need to look at your client\u2019s and neighbors that can be impacted if you or a sub-contractor\/vendor cause an environmental loss.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Environmental Liability Insurance Coverages<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><b>Environmental Impairment Liability (EIL)\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">EIL is for gravel mining operations susceptible to economic loss caused by pollution that actually or allegedly originated from their owned or leased location (mine).\u00a0 Sometimes referred to as pollution legal liability this coverage is for those who own, operate, lease, or have any other insurable interest in real property and the operations. Coverage can be written in a variety of ways addressing unknown preexisting conditions or new conditions. Coverage can include third party bodily injury and property damage along with business interruption and extra expense, on and off-site clean-up costs, legal defense expenses, non-owned disposal sites, transportation and more. EIL can be offered on multi-year terms.\u00a0 Sewer lines and pump\/lift stations can be covered by EIL.\u00a0 Most EIL policies cover above ground storage tanks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Transportation Pollution Liability<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Generally, Business Auto or Truckers policies will exclude pollution losses arising from spills or other releases of transported cargo. Transportation pollution liability affords coverage during the loading, unloading and transportation, for a spill, release or sudden upset and overturn of transported cargo.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Contractors Pollution Liability (CPL)<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Contractors Pollution Liability (CPL) is for gravel mining operations that perform contracting work away from any premises they own, rent, lease or occupy, should they cause or exacerbate an environmental condition while performing their contractor services.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coverage can be written on a job specific basis, or on a blanket basis to cover all the work performed by the insured.\u00a0 Most policies can be endorsed to cover transportation pollution liability, mold, lead, and asbestos, defense outside the limits, off-site disposal coverage, and more. Contractors incorporating CPL coverage as part of their risk transfer strategy, drive their growth and profits by marketing the benefits CPL coverage affords in reducing job interruption due to environmental issues.\u00a0 A major environmental liability exposure faced by all contractors lies in who they are doing business with.\u00a0 If there is an environmental loss at a job site, innocent contractors can and do get named in lawsuits.\u00a0 Do your subs\/vendors have CPL insurance if they cause an environmental loss?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Underground Storage Tanks<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Financial responsibility requirements ensure that owners and operators of underground storage tank systems can financially handle a release from an underground storage tank. The responsibility encompasses the ability to pay funds for corrective action and third-party bodily injury and property damage from non-sudden and sudden and accidental releases from a regulated underground tank system.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Property Transfer Liability\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When buying or selling property there can be unknown preexisting environmental conditions. Since a Phase I or Phase II survey cannot guarantee uncovering all potential environmental liabilities, insurance companies have created property transfer insurance. This coverage protects the new owner or any party with an insurable interest, against unknown environmental conditions that may be discovered during the policy period, that were not caused by the new owner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Property transfer coverage assists to keep the property at its maximum value while allowing the insured to negotiate more favorable loan terms than property not supported by this coverage.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Environmental exposures include silica;\u00a0 Stormwater runoff;\u00a0 Natural resource damages; Products pollution liability; and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[202],"class_list":["post-2782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-risk","tag-property-owners","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2785,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions\/2785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}