Environmental Impairment

Related Topics
Claims

Industry Insights

  • The Environmental Damage Regulations (EDR)
  • Regulations effective in all parts of the UK includes new concepts to make businesses that cause environmental damage responsible for the full consequences.
  • The regulations deal with serious environmental damage:
    • Damage to protected species and their habitats including sites of Special Scientific Interest
    • Damage to water (streams, rivers, ponds, lakes as well as underground water sources or groundwater)
    • Damage to land with significant risk for human health
    Read more > 
  • Environmental Liability Directive
  • New risks, new solutions
  • Companies are often unaware of the potentially huge environmental exposures they face and are unclear about whether their existing general liability policy covers these risks. Reprinted from Commercial Risks Europe. Read more >

Overview

A heightened level of public awareness around environment issues and ongoing developments in regulation means that businesses are increasingly responsible for environmental damage. For UK businesses, the impact of environmental issues and the liabilities arising from them can be large and complicated.

The legislative climate in the UK is changing rapidly. Today, in addition to paying for evaluating the extent of and cleaning up environmental damage, businesses also face new liabilities to compensate society for the damage done and reimburse it for “loss of use” until the environment is restored. These are potentially very complex areas where financial implications have yet to be quantified by actual judgements.

Many public liability insurance policies include an element of pollution cover.  Some businesses believe they are protected; however this usually covers only third party costs of bodily injury and property damage – and only in those cases of sudden accidents. Our range of environmental insurance solutions can address our client’s environmental exposures in a more comprehensive way and include costs that are directly associated to the business such as remediation or the business interruption as a result of that remediation as well as claims brought the business by others – even for environmental damage that’s not caused by pollution.

Market

Different businesses have different environmental exposures and risks. Some businesses have heightened environmental exposures from their air emissions, oil or chemical spills, waste management or water discharge from cleaning or cooling operations.

The flexibility of Chartis environmental impairment coverage can accommodate a large selection of businesses with operational processes including, but not limited to, construction projects, property developers, manufacturers, power producers, printers, metal fabricators, warehouses, haulage firms, textile producers, retailers and food processors as well as educational establishments, medical centres, retailers and hotels.

Businesses with no operational processes, particularly landowners and property management companies, have also to be mindful of environmental liabilities they could assume from the activities of their tenants, neighbours and from the site’s historical industrial processes.

Features & Benefits

    • Environmental Damage Regulation 2009 (EDR): our insurance provides cover for provisions of the EDR including ‘biodiversity’, complementary and compensatory remediation, defence and mitigation costs.
    • Sudden and accidental and gradual pollution: our environmental policies do not distinguish between sudden & accidental and gradual pollution, they cover both
    • While sudden and accidental spills are immediately obvious, greater potential exposures can arise over a long period of time, with repeated ‘insignificant’ leaks into the surrounding soil, the air and the groundwater table.
    • Non pollution environmental damage: Cover may extend beyond pollution to cover other types of environmental damage, even where pollution is not the cause.
    • Changing legal environment: Policies cover changes in legislation to keep up with rapidly evolving legislation
    • Coordination of buying practices: a global program will ensure that a clear and transparent process is implemented to buy environmental insurance at group level
    • Flexible structures: Ability to manuscript coverage and program structure to meet the unique needs of an Insured
    • Long term remediation: It can take years for an area to recover from environmental damage this can tie up resource for a long time and cost a lot of money. Through our claims team businesses are getting support in handling these claims including access to expertise that are used to working with multiple authorities to develop clean-up proposals (including compensatory and complimentary remediation plans) and are used to oversee (and pay for) the long term restoration of environmentally damaged sites.

Cover

  • Clean-Up Costs

    • Clean up costs of pollution on your own site as well as clean up costs of pollution that has migrated from your site

    • Clean up costs incurred by 3rd party (such as the costs of cleaning up pollution damage they caused that has spread onto neighbouring land) and/or governmental authorities

    • Clean up costs include mitigation and restoration costs

    Biodiversity Damage

    • Primary, complementary and compensatory remediation of land, water or protected species and habitats

    Business interruption

    • Own business interruption costs as a result of the clean up operations

    Third party bodily injury and property damage

    • Bodily injury and property damage resulting from both sudden and accidental and gradual events

    Legal costs

    • Environmental Laws and regulations are becoming more and more stringent. Chartis’ Envrionmental policies are designed to respond to environmental law including new regulations introduced during the policy period. It also covers investigations, defence costs, settlements and legal proceedings arising from pollution or environmental damage

    Transportation

    • Our insurance covers pollution caused by transportation to and from the Insured’s facilities

Chartis Offerings