Hazmat and the Adjuster

Many, if not most, adjusters may feel confident that they rarely will have to deal with serious hazardous material claims. After all, unless their insurers write environmental impairment liability coverage or their self-insured clients are in businesses that might involve chemicals or other pollutants, there are those delightful “absolute pollution exclusions” in the policies. Right?

Not always. It is true that those exclusions are pretty solid. The one in the CGL policy goes on for more than a full page of fine print defining and listing exceptions to the exclusion of any “bodily injury or property damage arising out of the actual, alleged, or threatened discharge, dispersal, seepage, migration, release, or escape of pollutants.”