For many oil spills, significant costs will be incurred in the initial emergency phase of a response as a result of deploying resources to protect sensitive areas and to recover the oil. In later phases, many of these same resources, especially personnel, may be used for cleaning damaged property and for undertaking subsequent environmental studies. Much of the information, particularly on record keeping and the applicability of rates for personnel and equipment, is relevant to the reasonable and practical response demand for resources. The process of preparing a claim for clean-up costs is undertaken generally in two stages;
- Keeping commercial records at the time the costs are incurred; and
- Linking the commercial records and costs with the rationale for the activity at the time the claim is compiled, usually when the response has been completed
A claim for clean-up that is considered to be well supported will usually include generic types of information records:
- Information received; (e.g. Polrep, Surveys, Reports)
- Meetings and decisions; (e.g. Poluter, Technical Advisors, Responders, Legislators)
- Activity; (Operations, IAP, Planning)
- Expenditure; (Records and approvals including evidence and backup)
- Effectiveness and results of actions. (Final Report, Site acceptance, Approval records)
IEMS acts solely as the technical advisor for the clients, we can assist our clients to develop the claim system, or verify their claim system, provide technical input to the claim and even support our clients through the meetings or a series of meetings with those responsible to pay the claim.
As part of our consulting services, we can support response claims by providing;
- Spill Response Experts
- Claim Support Document System
- Record Management
- Legal Representative
- Historical Case Examples
- An alternative to the insurers preferred technical and legal experts