When an insured has an ongoing environmental remediation project for which their insurance carrier has determined there is coverage, it is not unusual for the carrier to turn to Roux Associates to manage and provide oversight of the insured’s environmental consultant and contractors.  The purpose of this oversight is usually to ensure that the most cost-effective remedial strategies are implemented to fulfill the property owner’s environmental obligations.

Roux Associates oversight services focus on two interlocked aspects of an environmental project:

  • Project strategy and quality, and
  • Project costs.

The first aspect, project strategy and quality, is paramount.  Without a proper strategy and a quality plan to implement that strategy, an environmental project is unlikely to gain the regulatory approval necessary to get it to closure.  As part of our service, Roux Associates often reviews a policyholder’s investigation and/or clean-up work plans and reports prior to submission to regulatory authorities.  We do this as a quality control activity, with a goal of assisting the policyholder and their consultants in choosing a remedial strategy most likely to gain approval by regulatory agencies and be successful.  Whereas most consultants plans submitted for our review have been approved “as is”, we have assisted more than 250 other policyholders and their consultants by suggesting changes that have accelerated clean-up and/or made clean-up more effective.

The second aspect of our oversight services is to evaluate the reasonableness of overall environmental costs.  This activity typically is both pro-active and reactive.  The pro-active aspect involves review of plans and budgets.  This pro-active review has saved hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars for both insurers and their insureds.  While this has obvious benefits to the insurers, it also helps policyholders by preserving their coverage limits at the same time they fulfill their environmental obligations.  The reactive aspect of our reviews involve reviewing costs as they are incurred.  This can involve as little as routine invoice reviews or as much as assigning an on-site construction manager to a large remediation project.