Webinar – Risk Management Essentials: Optimizing Environmental Insurance for Today’s Challenges
Extreme weather events like the recent California wildfires and flooding in Asheville, coupled with more traditional environmental contamination concerns, are amplifying risks and liabilities in commercial real estate markets. As a result, some insurers are tightening underwriting standards, increasing premiums, imposing restrictive exclusions, or withdrawing from certain geographies. Additionally, emerging contaminants like PFAS are also impacting the availability, scope of coverage, and price of environmental insurance policies. Despite these challenges, environmental insurance remains an essential tool for risk management, property redevelopment, and CRE transactions.
This 75-minutes webinar will address the evolving environmental insurance market, offering practical guidance and strategies for commercial real estate owners, developers, consultants, and other stakeholders on securing and optimizing coverage.
During this presentation, our expert speakers will:
- Examine the available types of environmental insurance policies to manage risks across different liability scenarios, focusing on their availability, limits, and customization options.
- Discuss the range of policy needs for multifamily, commercial, and industrial properties and the factors that can increase complexity in transactions or redevelopment projects.
- Provide actionable tips on tailoring policies to address environmental liability concerns and strategies for negotiating terms to secure the most effective coverage that satisfy owner, lender, and regulatory requirements.
- Present case studies illustrating typical CRE situations and more complex scenarios requiring specialized coverage.
Disclaimer: ERIS is providing this topic to you for your information purposes only. ERIS has no opinion one way or another regarding the subject matter.
About the Speakers:
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Gary L. Walters, Environmental Engineer, Bridge House Advisors Corp. Gary is an environmental engineer with over 40 years of professional experience. His education includes a B.A. in Biology (Chemistry minor) from McDaniel College and a Master of Science in Environmental Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park. Gary has been with Bridge House Advisors since 2022 and serves as a Senior Environmental Business Advisor within Bridge House’s Pre-Investment Due Diligence Services team. Prior to joining Bridge House, Gary was a Partner at Environmental Resources Management (ERM) for 30 years, A Branch Chief with the U.S. Army Environmental Center (AEC), and a Project Engineer and Project Manager with Black & Veatch Engineers. His principal areas of practice include environmental due diligence in support of transactions, hazardous waste management, investigation and remediation of impaired properties, water and wastewater treatment, auditing and regulatory compliance. His clients have included many Fortune 500 industrial clients, and some of the nation’s most prominent law firms and private equity firms. |
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Dennis M. Toft, Chair, Environmental Law, Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi, PC Dennis Toft is a renowned environmental lawyer who applies a keen understanding of science and the complexities of regulatory process when addressing the wide range of issues that his clients face. He provides counsel on all aspects of environmental law, including regulatory counseling, environmental due diligence, permitting, enforcement and environmental litigation, development/redevelopment and environmental insurance.Dennis is highly regarded as one of New Jersey’s leading Brownfields redevelopment practitioners. Governor Christine Todd Whitman appointed Dennis to serve on the New Jersey Brownfields and Contaminated Site Remediation Task Force, a group created by state law to identify and market Brownfields sites. In 2002, Governor James McGreevey appointed Dennis as chairman of the task force. He was a member of Governor Chris Christie’s transition team, where he was a member of the Environmental Protection Committee. Dennis was also appointed by Governor Richard Codey and served on the New Jersey Solid Waste Advisory Council. He was also a member of Governor McGreevey’s Transition Team – Environmental Committee.Dennis received his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and served as a staff member and administrative editor of the Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems. He earned a degree in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was elected to Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. |
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Jared Dubrowsky, Senior Vice President, NFP Jared Dubrowsky is the Senior Vice President of NFP’s Environmental Insurance practice. Jared has over 20 years of experience in Environmental Risk Management and Insurance.Jared works with buyers, sellers, and operators of properties as well as business owners to identify their environmental exposures and design environmental insurance programs that ensure that exposure is properly insured.Before entering the insurance arena, Jared worked in various roles within the environmental field including Regional Environmental Risk Officer for Santander Banks, Multi-family Specialty Lending Unit, Project Manager and Environmental Specialist with the City of New York, Department of City Planning and Environmental Specialist at Stantec Consulting.Jared previously served as a volunteer firefighter for over 17 years with the Hewlett Fire Department. Jared was a Certified Interior Fire Fighter and Motor Pump Operator where he had hands on experience with AFFF foam. |
About the Moderator:
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Dave Colonna, Director, Lender Solutions, ERIS Dave joined ERIS in the summer of 2021 and serves as Director, Lender Solutions. He has supported the needs of both environmental professionals and lenders for the past 20 years. |