Insurance Underwriting and Claims Management Services and Experience

Technical Expertise – The experts at TBLS Environmental Advisory Services have years of experience providing underwriting, claims and litigation support to the insurance industry, and industry clients. In addition to remediation support they have provided the following services for a broad array of insurance lines, including Environmental Impairment Liability (PLL), Cleanup Cost Cap (CCC), EAGLE, Finite Risk (EPP) and Contractors Pollution Liability (CPL).

TBLS Environmental Risk Control Services – As consultants, we have conducted numerous studies in developing risk metrics, due diligence, and control measures by auditing their existing practices and hazardous waste transport, storage and disposal Best Management Practices, permitting and compliance, pre-existing conditions/past land usage, and waste facility infrastructure evaluations.  These third-party review helps industry manage their insurance premiums and health safety and environmental programs as well as helping carriers rate the risk at policy placement or renewal.  In addition, TBLS experts have conducted a range of special services related to risk control including in governmental regulatory advisory on behalf of insurance carriers.  Some example industries/sites include:

• Petroleum > 800 separate facilities including pipelines, bulk storage & rail / marine terminaling facilities, truck stops, service stations, and refineries (BP Oil, Chevron, Conoco Philips, Arco, Unocal, Mobil/Exxon, Pacific Pride, GATX/Kinder Morgan, CPC. Premcor, Olympic Pipeline Company, Valero, as well a plethora smaller and regional distributors), and two upstream oil exploration regions such as drilling companies, oil fields, and drilling supply companies in such regions as Bakersfield CA, West Texas, 4-Corners Area – US, Kuwait, Alberta, Canada.
• Transportation including
  • Air: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Portland International Airport, Sky-Harbor and other smaller airports and aircraft fueling, maintenance, and repair facilities;
  • Rail: a variety of rail and light rail facilities (BNSF, Union Pacific, Sound Transit, FMN in Mexico);
  • Auto Manufacturing and Rental: car rental facilities (Hertz); Ford Motor Company, General Motors plant facilities in US, Central America, and South America
• Chemical and Chemical Blending Plants >30 plant sites including painting and coating, synthetics (nylon, rubber) manufacturing, pesticide plants, wood chemical resin manufacturing facilities, specialty gas facilities, , plastics manufacturing, etc.
• Asphalt manufacturing, Asphalt mixing Plants and Quarry Sites – > Audits on over 30 asphalt plants as well as many gravel, crushable rock quarry sites and concrete facilities.
• Mining,  including Anaconda Copper District in Montana, Bunker Hill/Coeur d’Alene Mining District in Idaho, Globe Miami District in AZ, and the Centralia Coal Mine in WA
• Metal Refining, Plating including 2 aluminum smelters, 12 copper smelters, 2 steel mills, a variety auto shredders, specialty plating, and 1 hard chrome facility.
• Wood Products – > 40 wood product facilities including lumber mills, paper mills, logging/log storage, wood-treating facilities including Cu/As, creosote, and pentachlorophenol treating operations etc. in US and Canada
• Shipyards, Ports, and Marine Infrastructure sites including Todd Shipyards (now Vigor Industries), Lockheed Martin, Port of Seattle, Port of Bellingham, Port of Oakland, Port of Tacoma, Port of Portland, Port of Everett, etc. as well as variety of smaller ports, ship repair, marina, and marine fueling facilities
• Utility/Power Generation Facilities – > 10 hydroelectric, coal, oil, natural gas power generating facilities.
• TSD (Transportation, Storage and Disposal) Facilities including one high level (Hanford), two low-level radioactive waste sites, chemical reprocessing facilities, and multiples of solid waste, construction debris, hog-fuel, mining slurry waste, and multiple hazardous waste landfills including landfill gas to energy facilities.  Work included facility audits and checking closure/post closure plans against reserves.
• Electronic Manufacturing including 2 silicon wafer/chip manufacturing facilities, printed circuit board facilities, battery recycling facilities, and over 50 telecommunication sites.
• Real Estate portfolios including manufacturing parks, REITs, commercial bank loan portfolios, shopping centers, raw land, major brownfield portfolios and BRAC transfer sites (Adak Island).  The largest include:
  • >200 acres of manufacturing park (Spokane Industrial Park (70 warehouses),
  • >150 separate warehouses in New Jersey (Prologis) ~10 MM sf,
  • Phase I ESA of over >100 separate properties /17-block for largest convention center in the PNW (Oregon Convention Center)
• Food & Beverage including fish-packing/cannery facilities, dairy & milk products, baked goods, wineries, agribusiness including grain elevators, fruit packing, food storage, and meat processing
• Miscellaneous Audits including a vacation resort, schools, and various state/county/municipal facilities

TBLS Claims Support Services

TBLS Environmental Group’s experts have supported environmental insurance carriers and provided technical claims assistance for a variety of insurers including CIGNA, Safeco, AIG, ACE, Great American, Firemans Fund,  . Representative projects include:

• Todd Shipyards Operable Unit – A TBLS expert, working collaboratively with the insured’s legal, environmental, and risk management team as well as the carrier, helped write bid specifications and conduct bidding of remedial design consultants and remediation construction services as monitoring consultant for AIG Technical Services (Environmental Claims group) for the Todd Shipyards Operable Unit of the Shipyard Sediment Operable Unit of the Harbor Island Superfund Site in Seattle, Washington. The cleanup process was conducted under an insured liability cost cap program underwritten by the carrier.  The services provided included evaluation of day to day work, evaluation of regular monthly bills, as well as sole sign-off responsibility for emergency disbursements submitted to the claims group for payment on a $19 million Superfund cleanup of marine and upland conditions.   Remedial services including the dredge removal and offsite disposal of approximately 220,000 cubic yards of shipyard impacted sediments as well as the upland removal of over 200,000 gallons of petroleum from a marine terminaling site over a four year time-frame. It also included the removal and replacement of four piers, associated treated wood pilings, etc.   Construction services were delivered using an innovative “sliding profit fee” as an incentive for achieving effective cost controls during construction. The expert authored and presented numerous communications as on-site representative for the insurance company and liaison with the insured, and the insured’s consultants and attorneys. This approach led to a significant savings for the insurance carrier estimated at nearly 50% over projections at the onset of the project.  Upon departure from AIG, the insured thanked the expert for a job well done.  In 2005 the project was awarded a commendation by U.S. EPA as one of the most successful dredging projects ever conducted and today is in the second term of the 30 year post remediation monitoring.

• Milltown Dam Site in Montana:  A TBLS expert was retained to assist on technical claims support for the Milltown Dam Superfund site which included the diversion of a river, removal of over 1.7 MM cubic yards of mine impacted soils to a waste repository approximately 40 miles away, the decommission of a hydroelectric dam, and the cleanup in groundwater of a large arsenic plume.  The Milltown Dam site is one of the largest sediment Superfund sites ever carried out in the US.

• Barbie Mill and Quendall Terminals upland and sediments Superfund sites on Lake Washington in Washington State.  TBLS experts were retained for claims support services related to the Barbie Mill and Quendall Terminals site, a Washington State Superfund project.  Barbee Mill and Quendall Terminals were a closed wood treating facility.  The work was done on behalf of AIG Technical Services.

• 8 Hazardous Waste Landfills Closure / Post Closure Monitoring in California.  A TBLS expert was retained for claims support services related to review of work conducted on behalf of a major environmental insurance carrier and the technical review of bills submitted by the insured for the closure of one permitted treatment storage and disposal facility (TSDF) and the post-closure monitoring of an additional 7 TSDFs under RCRA.  The work included monitoring of investigation work done at one of the TSDFs of an offsite chlorinated hydrocarbon plume which was an additional claim under the policy.  

• Chemical Blending Facility and State Superfund site.  A TBLS expert was retained to help prepare bid documents for a bid process for an innovative guaranteed fix fee remediation of a chemical blending facility as part of a buy-out of an occurrence based property and casualty policy whose limits had been depleted substantially in years of investigations, emergency response, and remedial planning.  As part of the process, the TBLS expert subsequently reviewed bills submitted by the new remediation consultant and project manager against a reasonable and necessary standard of the selected contractor and the terms of the new insured contract.

• 2 Chlorinated Solvent Cleanups.  A TBLS consultant was retained by a major cost cap insurance company to monitor environmental work, policy required submissions, and bills submitted under a reasonable and necessary standard according to the insured scope of work for two chlorinated solvent sites, one in Washington State and one in Oregon.  The work involved working with the claims examiner, the insured’s consultants, and the insured’s risk manager to assure that all reports were submitted to the standards required by the carrier.  Both sites were cleaned up under the cost cap limits and received No Further Action letters from the respective State Environmental Agencies.

TBLS Underwriting & Renewal Support

TBLS Environmental Group’s experts have supported environmental insurance underwriting for new accounts and facility/company auditing for insurance renewals. These have included phone surveys, file reviews, facility audits, portfolio audits, cost cap remediation reviews, and everything in between.  The technical leadership of TBLS’s experts has been a key factor in major projects. The following demonstrate the technical background and prowess of our experts:

• Technical Lead for BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) Prospect in Alaska (Adak Island) – A TBLS expert managed the due diligence efforts including an estimation of cleanup liability for approximately 65 Superfund sites, 39 landfills, 7 sediment cleanup sites, over 450 other petroleum and hazardous waste sites, and over 500 UXO sites. Services included working with local and national brokerage firms, underwriters, legal counsel, and a tribal council to develop a comprehensive review of conditions and an overall cost estimate. The cost estimate was used by the Aleut Corporation as the basis for detailed financial negotiations with the U.S. Navy.
• Williams Company / Western Pioneer (Delta Western) Fuel Division Merger & Acquisition:  A TBLS expert conducted facility audits on 30 oil terminaling facilities in Alaska.  What made this unique and a demonstration of the “can-do” attitude of TBLS Group was that the timing of the deal required that the audits be performed in the dead of winter in Alaska during the week of Christmas and the first week of the New Century.  Flying in a rented corporate jet with environmental due diligence and business executives from the Buyer and Seller, we were able to complete the project on time and on budget on a diversity of locations from the Pribilof Islands in the Arctic to Ketchikan and Juneau on the panhandle as well as Dutch Harbor, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Dead Horse, White Horse, Juneau, and a myriad of other remote village locations.
• ISO 9001 Pollution Policy Renewal Audit:  As part of policy renewal a TBLS expert conducted a full QA/QC audit of one of the largest silicon wafer manufacturing facilities in the US.  The renewal survey was the insurance company’s protocol, but the fact that the TBLS expert was also trained as a ISO 9001 auditor was an added bonus that helped renew the account according to the company’s broker and risk manager.  This is but one of many electronic manufacturing facilities for which new policy and renewal of existing accounts have been done.
• Paper Manufacturing Facilities – TBLS experts have conducted policy renewal and underwriting audits on more than 20 pulp and paper and corrugated box facilities including for such companies as International Paper, Smurfitt Stone Container, Boise Cascade, Georgia Pacific, Menasha, Grays Harbor Paper in several states helping underwriters to understand the intricacies of these large wood chemical manufacturing and associated waste handling, log storage, waste storage, chlorine/alkali, waste water treatment and associated NPDES permits, rail facilities, and landfill disposal units.  In addition, TBLS experts have worked on a variety of other types of wood product and wood chemical facilities including treated wood facilities.
• Food & Beverage:  TBLS Experts have assisted underwriters for new policy placement and existing policy renewals on a wide variety of national brand manufacturers/producers in the food and beverage industry including for bakeries, dairy products, beverages, fishing/seafood packing, meat packing and curing, fruit and produce packing facilities, breweries and wineries, agribusiness, etc.  This has included a variety of warehousing and refrigerated storage units.
• Transportation:  TBLS experts have helped underwriters with due diligence for a variety of transportation industry prospects and accounts including major car rental companies, small and international airports, airlines, and aircraft manufacturers, automobile manufacturers and part manufacturers, truck and rail car manufacturing, ship building and ship repair, marine shipping, small and major US port facilities, fuel terminaling and pipeline companies, among others.

TBLS Environmental Risk Profiling and Environmental Liability Valuations 

• Confidential Client-Finite Risk Policy – Under a sole-source MSA with a carrier, a TBLS expert conducted the environmental due diligence and environmental valuation for a liability buy-out and “cost cap” program that included six major oil companies and the U.S. EPA. The program value exceeded $120 million and provides coverage for 30 years. Environmental valuation and cost analyses involved the use of @Risk and RACER to analyze an extensive cost estimate and produce a third-party cost estimate.
• Confidential Client-Closure-Post Closure Care Policy – Under a sole-source MSA with a major carrier, a TBLS expert performed technical due diligence and evaluation of C/PC funding for a portfolio of solid waste facilities. The program value was over $120 million and would span more than 30 years.
• Georgia Pacific/Whatcom Waterway Liability Buy-out – A TBLS expert served as technical lead at AIGCEM for insurance placement relating to the Georgia Pacific/Whatcom Waterway liability buy-out by the Port of Bellingham (Puget Sound, Washington). Responsibilities included evaluation of records for sixteen sites, including two Waterways (Whatcom, I&J), four landfills (Cornwall, Roeder, Hilltop, & Airport), a sewage aeration basin, and nine industrial properties (Georgia Pacific’s Tissue Plant, Chlor Alkali Plant, Pulp Mill, Log Pond, Port of Bellingham’s K Wharf, Chevron Terminal, Colony Wharf Sites, RG Haley and Georgia Pacific Warehouse). The work involved preparation of remedial cost risk profiles for uplands, sediments and Natural Resource Damage risks while serving as regulatory liaison and public meeting support for AIG Environmental, and supporting policy language preparation.
• Brownfield Redevelopment – A TBLS expert conducted sediment remediation and upland cleanup analyses of a major shipyard in Portland, Oregon. The work was aimed at developing a cleanup plan and cost estimates in support of an insurance program for the Brownfield redeveloper.
• NRD Risk Financial Quantification for Coal Tar Derivatives/Creosote Terminating Site – A TBLS expert created cost estimates for a sediment Superfund project for a national Brownfield developer. The estimates supported efforts to provide an insurance program to limit liability exposure. The expert prepared the cost estimates using RACER cost estimating software and @Risk financial risk profile modeling software.
• US Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) – A TBLS expert developed the CCC/PLL environmental insurance cost estimating and technical portion of an insurance application package for 34 light- industrial sites as part of a large REIT risk-management portfolio in New Jersey. The expert used RACER software to prepare the cost estimates.
• Gas Plant Clean-Up – A TBLS expert developed cost estimates for a CCC/PLL environmental insurance application for a manufactured gas plant cleanup project in San Rafael, California. The estimates were prepared for a Brownfield developer working on behalf of the City of San Rafael.
• Refinery Liability Buy-out – A TBLS expert developed a reasonable worst cast for a $150 MM liability buyout involving 6 major oil refineries and due diligence for a new policy seeking to underwrite an EPA Trust.  The due diligence effort involved reviewing over 70 major reports and countless monitoring and remediation operation and maintenance reports generated at the facilities since the 1970’s.
• Commencement Bay in Tacoma, Washington including six Operable Units and waterways (Thea Foss, Hylebos, Head of Thea Foss, Middle Waterway, and three Asarco Operable Units)