Governor Kitzhaber signed Senate Bill 814 into law last week. This bill substantially amends the Oregon Environmental Cleanup Assistance Act in a manner very favorable to policyholders prosecuting claims seeking insurance coverage for claims arising from environmental contamination. First, the law makes it clear that the anti-assignment language contained in most general liability policies only applies to pre-loss assignments. This means that a company that was transferred or conveyed rights under a policy during a corporate transaction can recover under the policy so long as the loss occurred before the assignment. This is often required because the discharges leading to a claim often occurred decades ago, and because there are often multiple corporate changes between the time of the discharge and the time of the claim.
