Specialist Pollution Insurance & Legal Liability
for Small and Medium Businesses
provided by and in partnership with EDIA Limited
Historical Pollution Liability
What happened then can impact the now.
The United Kingdom has experienced significant industrial activity over the centuries, becoming prevalent during the industrial revolution of the 1800s. As such, these historical activities have polluted land, air and water. Through 21st century implementation and improvements to environmental guidance and regulation these polluting industries are becoming a thing of the past. However, the legacy of such operations still exist today and can continue to impact our environment. Examples of processes, materials, wastes and contaminants relating to various industries have been published by the Environment Agency and can be found here:
How can this affect my business?
The location of your business premises may be positioned on an area of ground that contains these historically polluting legacies. Unknowingly, you may be operating on a property, whether owned or leased by you that holds you accountable for future pollution liability attaching to this historical contamination, even though your business did not originally cause the pollution.
Lets look at an example >>>>
Resulting Scenarios
1. Your business is mentioned in the media as being the source of the pollution that has led to impacts to other humans and/or the environment
How do you control your message into the public domain through the media – is your business reputation about to be damaged?
2. The Environment Agency trace a contaminant and allege that it originates from your property
How do you manage this unexpected environmental regulatory intervention? Do you need to legally defend the accusation? Maybe it is your liability; do you need to investigate what has occurred and clean it up? Do you know how to clean-up to the necessary standards? Can you control these costs?
3. Have you been approached by a third party?
Maybe a neighbouring business; on-site tenants, or even a local angling society contact you relating to issues resulting from contamination that may originate from your business. Are they filing a legal claim against you? Do you need legal defence from a specialist environmental lawyer?
4. Has a pollution incident occurred from the manifestation of historical contamination at your site that impacts the continuity of your own Business activities
How do you control the logistics and costs of temporarily shifting your business activities? How do you ensure that the extent of the damage is quantified and dealt with as soon as possible?
How can SPILL help my business?
We can assist in the process of understanding and mitigating against historical liabilities:
Step 1
We can source a Phase 1 Report from our partner provider Groundsure.
Step 2
We can review the report to understand your liability and advise as to whether a more intrusive investigation (Phase 2) is required. We can assist in procuring the correct environmental consultants to undertake this work and influence the scope of investigation to ensure the assessment is robust.
Step 3
We can provide a financial provision in the form of a SPILL insurance policy to off-set the potential financial impact of a pollution claim and clean-up from historical contamination that you become legally liable for.