Does General Liability
Cover a Sewage Spill?
Almost certainly not. The standard general liability form excludes pollutants that are handled, treated, transported or disposed of as waste, and it defines waste as a pollutant. For a septic contractor that language describes the job.
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The longer answer
With the sources, so you can check us.
What the form actually says
ISO form CG 00 01 Exclusion f. removes coverage for pollutants “transported, handled, stored, treated, disposed of, or processed as waste,” and at any premises used “for the handling, storage, disposal, processing or treatment of waste.” Definition 15 includes waste in the meaning of pollutants.
A septage hauler already tested it and lost
In Preisler v. Kuettel’s Septic Service, 2014 WI 135, a pumping company land-applied septage, nitrates reached a neighbour’s well and cattle died. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held decomposing septage was a pollutant and that the exclusion precluded coverage.
Courts do not all agree
We will not tell you the outcome is certain. In Evanston Ins. Co. v. J&J Cable Construction (11th Cir. 2018) a sewage backup was held not barred under Alabama law. Your form, your facts and your state all matter, which is a bad set of variables to discover after a loss.
What does answer it
Contractors pollution liability, which covers third-party bodily injury, property damage, cleanup and defence from a pollution condition arising out of your operations, sudden or gradual.
Sources: ISO CG 00 01 04 13 (sample CGL form), Preisler v. Kuettel’s Septic Service, 2014 WI 135
What this means for your business
- ISO form CG 00 01 Exclusion f. removes coverage for pollutants “transported, handled, stored, treated, disposed of, or processed as waste,” and at any premises used “for the handling, storage, disposal, processing or treatment of waste.” Definition 15 includes waste in the meaning of pollutants.
- In Preisler v. Kuettel’s Septic Service, 2014 WI 135, a pumping company land-applied septage, nitrates reached a neighbour’s well and cattle died. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held decomposing septage was a pollutant and that the exclusion precluded coverage.
- We will not tell you the outcome is certain. In Evanston Ins. Co. v. J&J Cable Construction (11th Cir. 2018) a sewage backup was held not barred under Alabama law. Your form, your facts and your state all matter, which is a bad set of variables to discover after a loss.
- Contractors pollution liability, which covers third-party bodily injury, property damage, cleanup and defence from a pollution condition arising out of your operations, sudden or gradual.
Answered by Septic Cleaning Insurance Group
We only write this trade, and we read the policy before we sell it. More on the operations we insure and the coverage behind them.
Straight answers, no insurance-speak
Contractors pollution liability. It covers third-party bodily injury, property damage, cleanup and defence from a pollution condition arising out of your operations, and unlike a modern GL it reaches both sudden releases and gradual conditions.
Yes, significantly. The base form keeps a few narrow carve-backs. The Total Pollution Exclusion endorsement deletes them and applies to damage that would not have occurred in whole or in part but for a release, at any time. You cannot tell which you have from the declarations page.
Different policy again. That is commercial auto, and the standard business auto form excludes the load while covering the truck’s own diesel. There is an endorsement that buys the load back, and most policies we review do not carry it.
Possibly not. These answers describe standard forms and common rules; your policy may carry endorsements that change the result either way. Send the declarations and endorsement schedule and we will tell you what your form does.
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Send the declarations and endorsements. We will tell you what your form does, not what a standard form does.
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