Asbestos Insurance Recovery focuses on locating and identifying historical liability insurance policies to provide coverage for your company’s current asbestos and environmental claims.  CGL and other commercial policies up until 1986 did not contain asbestos exclusions.  These policies typically provided “occurrence” based coverage, which means that they still pay for “bodily injury” claims that don’t manifest until decades later.  These are referred to as “long-tail” claims.  Most policies since 1986 contain asbestos exclusions, and are written on a “claims-made” basis, which means that they only pay for claims made during the policy term or for a limited extended reporting period.  As such, these policies can and expire, whereas “occurrence” based policies have no expiration date.  Thus, “occurrence” policies can be highly valuable for long-tail asbestos and environmental claims.

Asbestos Insurance Recovery Process

The process of asbestos insurance recovery involves policy archaeology to locate and identify these policies. Once the insurance policies are located, a coverage map is developed and claims against various insurers are made. After being provided notice, insurers generally acknowledge that these policies indeed do indeed provide coverage, and will frequently immediately begin defending the claims subject to a reservation of rights. Procuring asbestos insurance recovery can initially be challenging, but assuming your company purchased general liability coverage before 1986 – and most every company did – it typically is highly successful if done correctly and with experienced professionals with a long track record in the asbestos and environmental long-tail recovery area.

Learn more about Hoke LLC’s Asbestos Insurance Recovery Services