Risk manager for The Polestar Group says public liability insurers should consider providing more cover for environmental liability
Public liability insurers should consider providing more cover for environmental liability, says Gary Marshall, group risk manager, The Polestar Group.
Marshall, who will be presenting a workshop this afternoon on environmental liability, says that since insurers introduced the pollution exclusion, limiting cover to sudden and accidental events, the situation in the UK has changed.
"We are more regulated than before, local authorities know about most contaminated land in their areas, and insurers have more means of gathering that information," he explains.
Marshall considers that the environmental impairment liability insurance market which has developed in recent years is an imperfect solution for companies looking for cover for their daily activities.
"EIL insurance works for mergers and acquisitions but not for the odd spill or gradual leakage that might occur." He is expecting a helpful debate to produce a consensus on what risk managers and their advisers need to do to go back and argue the case for an improvement, although he admits that broadening pollution cover would come at a cost.
