ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGES AND INSURANCE RECOVERY
We have significant experience calculating damages in environmental matters related to property damage, bodily injury claim projections, and other third party claims, such as business interruption claims. We work in both the public and private sectors regarding cost analysis, forecasting, damage and penalty assessments, and insurance-related issues. We assist clients with developing claims to submit for insurance cost recovery, review damage claims presented by the EPA for reimbursement, and project future costs associated with long-term environmental damages. Our broad experience in damages enables us to combine our economic, financial, statistical, market/survey research and technology expertise to model potential environmental damage scenarios. ARPC consultants are often retained to calculate and allocate environmental response costs and other damages among multiple parties who have alleged exposure to a site. We act as an independent, third-party consultant to provide an unbiased allocation of costs for environmental defense groups or when retained by individual companies, we review proposed share calculations performed by others. We have significant technology expertise to assist us in the most efficient, cost-effective way to sift through the thousands of documents, including invoices, which are frequently the basis for determining PRP shares and exposure.
ARPC consultants have also assisted numerous companies with the analysis of their insurance policies and preparation of claims involving mass tort and environmental matters. Determining available coverage and allocating the losses to the appropriate policies is frequently a source of dispute between companies and their insurers. In environmental matters, several factors need to be modeled into potential insurance recoveries, including: chosen trigger and allocation theories, percentage discounts that may apply to pollution, and owned-site exclusions and definition of occurrence. We work closely with insurance coverage counsel in our modeling and recovery efforts to prepare for litigation if settlement is not an option. We combine our extensive environmental-claim valuation skills with an understanding of the underlying issues to assist our clients with the best choices possible for insurance recoveries.
ARPC also reviews clean-up cost claims submitted by the EPA for appropriateness. In many cases, we have assisted our clients in reducing billed costs. Our approach and analyses are independent, objective and have been tested in numerous litigation environments. We communicate our analysis in simple terms that are easily understood even when the matter is complex or technical.
We focus our environmental damages and insurance recovery services in the following areas:
· Damage calculations and remediation cost analysis
· Cost allocations and PRP shares
· Insurance analysis and recovery
· Due diligence in mergers & acquisitions
· Regulatory fines and penalty analysis
· Preparation of environmental claims to insurance carriers
· Settlement discussions between companies and insurance carriers
· Financial statement reporting requirements
· Expert testimony
One of our representative engagements is:
ARPC was retained by a large petrochemical company involved in the Love Canal matter. We assisted our client in the valuation of personal injury claims related to alleged exposure to toxic materials. We also reviewed for appropriateness the costs and fines that EPA estimated for damages associated with clean-up costs that were billed to our client.
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