Clean-up costs · insured event · clearing up
Environmental damage insurance through De Goudse
Environmental damage insurance pays for clearing up contaminated soil. The question that costs the most money when a claim is made is not whether you are insured, but which event caused the contamination.
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Deze pagina in het Nederlands: Milieuschadeverzekering via De Goudse.
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A premium indication, not personal advice. Prefer to talk it through? Call 072 - 509 24 56.
In brief
Finass Advies acts as an intermediary and compares the market objectively across several insurers. De Goudse is one of the companies we approach for SMEs that need an environmental damage section alongside their buildings and contents cover: a garage business with waste oil, a car wash with a sludge trap, a catering business with a grease separator or a contractor with a diesel tank behind the warehouse. Which company it becomes follows from your cover requirements and from the conditions, not from the name on the policy schedule. The product explanation itself is on the page environmental damage insurance.
The core of this product is that it is first-party cover: it pays for investigating and cleaning up contamination on your own site, even where no third party makes any claim against you. That is precisely the gap that a public and employers' liability insurance leaves open, because it pays only for other people's loss. If you contaminate your own land there is no injured party and therefore no liability, while the bill for the clean-up still lands on your desk.
In the conditions, watch one provision that recurs in almost every SME version: cover applies only where the contamination results from an event on an exhaustive list. Fire, explosion, a lightning strike, storm, a collision or the sudden failure of a tank are usually on it. A coupling that has dripped for months is not. The soil is just as dirty in both cases, but only the first leads to a payment.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Environmental damage insurance.
What to look out for
Four provisions that make more difference to SME environmental damage cover than the size of the sum insured.
The list of insured events decides the outcome
Always ask which events are listed and whether the section is limited to sudden and unforeseen emissions. A tank that cracks after a forklift has driven into it falls within the list. A pipe that has slowly begun to leak through corrosion falls outside it and is treated at claims stage as gradual pollution. A soil survey usually demonstrates that distinction.
What was already in the soil is for your own account
Contamination that demonstrably dates from before the start date is excluded. If you take over premises or a business, have a baseline soil survey carried out and keep the report. Without that measurement it is impossible, at a later clean-up, to separate what is yours from what belongs to your predecessor, and you carry the burden of proof. If you conceal a known contamination when applying, the insurer can rely on the Articles 7:928 and 7:930 of the Dutch Civil Code.
The leaking installation itself is not environmental damage
The insurance pays for clearing up the contamination, not for repairing or replacing the tank, pipe or machine it came from. That is a matter for a inherent defect and belongs on the business contents and goods insurance or for machinery breakdown cover. Nor should you count on deferred maintenance being accepted: inspection reports for tanks and floors are often a condition of acceptance.
Asbestos, fines and the standstill during the clean-up
Three items remain structurally outside this policy. Asbestos in or on the building is excluded, even where it comes to light during the clean-up. Administrative fines and penalty payments imposed by the environmental agency are a punishment and not compensation, and are therefore insurable nowhere. And the turnover you lose while your site is dug up falls under a business interruption insurance or under a separate section for it.
What does your premium depend on?
- Nature of the business activity: a metalworking firm is weighed differently from an office organisation
- Storage of liquids: type of substance, quantity and above- or below-ground tanks
- Area and number of sites: each location is assessed separately
- Soil type and groundwater level: sand spreads faster than clay, and that determines the scale of the clean-up
- Baseline soil survey available: a recent report makes acceptance easier
- Excess and sections chosen: your own site only, or the adjoining plot as well
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | Environmental damage | Liability |
|---|---|---|
| A forklift punctures the diesel tank behind your warehouse and the oil seeps into your own ground | Yes | No |
| That same oil runs on to the neighbour's plot and he demands a clean-up from you | Provided that | Yes |
| While a fire in your warehouse is being put out, contaminated firefighting water washes into the ditch | Yes | Provided that |
| The grease separator under your kitchen has been leaking into the soil unnoticed for months | No | No |
| On buying the premises, the ground turned out to be already contaminated by the previous user | No | No |
| A vandal opens the valve of your storage tank at night and the contents run out across the yard | Provided that | No |
Who bears the bill depends above all on whose contaminated ground it is.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
My tank has been leaking for some time. Is that covered?
Probably not. Almost all SME versions cover only contamination resulting from a sudden, unforeseen event on the list in the policy. A leak that has built up over months counts as gradual contamination and is excluded. At claims stage, a soil survey usually makes clear how long the substance has been on the move.
Why does the insurer ask for a baseline soil survey?
Because the policy covers only new contamination. A baseline measurement records the state of the soil when the cover began. If that measurement is missing, a loss often leads to argument about which part of the pollution is yours. When taking over premises or a site, such a report is sensible quite apart from the insurance.
Is contamination at the neighbours included?
That depends on the section chosen. Besides your own site, many policies also cover cleaning up an adjoining plot to which the substance has migrated. If the neighbour claims against you for consequential loss, for example lost rent or a sale that falls through, that is liability and runs through environmental liability cover. Have it recorded which of the two you are taking out.
When do I have to report an incident?
Immediately. Under Article 7:941 of the Dutch Civil Code you report a loss as soon as you are reasonably aware of it, and you also have a duty to mitigate the loss: you must do what is reasonable to limit further spread. With soil contamination every day counts, because the substance keeps moving and the clean-up costs rise with it.
Read more
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