Environmental Structured Settlements provide a risk management solution to responsible parties in toxic torts and regulators, where guaranteed cash flow is vital to the long term stewardship of a clean up project.  Environmental Structured Settlements are an ideal solution for larger clean up projects such as closure of large industrial sites, landfills, mines, CERCLA (Superfund), Recovery Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the like with stable stewardship obligations.

The main difference between the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (Superfund) is that: RCRA is an approach to manage solid and hazardous waste at facilities that are currently in use while CERCLA is focused on the management and remediation of abandoned, non-operating sites with media contaminated with hazardous substance. [ Source: Northern Arizona State University]

How Environmental Structured Settlements Work

Environmental Structured Settlements and clean up funding arrangements involve a promise to make future periodic payments to a trust or fund as set forth in the stewardship agreement. 4structures.com LLC is prepared to discuss a variety of environmental clean-up funding options and strategies which provide the financial stability of major insurers and/or reinsurers. Thus,  Environmental Structured Settlements enable the Party Responsible to advance fund present value and guarantee fixed and determinable future clean up obligations, and the costs of long term monitoring. Payments can be guaranteed for as long as 50 years, extending beyond the duration limits set forth in most pollution liability insurance policies. Moreover, fund recapture IS possible.

Future Clean Up Funding is Not Affected by Bankruptcy of Responsible Party

Bankruptcy of the party responsible for the clean up DOES NOT affect the transaction. A 1995 paper by Bruce M. Diamond, then EPA Director of the Office of Site Remediation Enforcement entitled “Exploring the Use of Annuities as Funding Tools for Superfund Settlements”, stated that “because annuities are sold and administered by large, regulated, conservative financial institutions with substantial assets, their promise to pay over a long time may be more reliable than that of a business PRP lacking the same resources or stability”.

Click here to download a copy of the April 17, 1995 EPA paper which provides a foundational basis for using Environmental Structured Settlements.

A non-qualified assignment represents one method that future payment obligations can be funded without requiring the regulator or governmental authority to own the annuity or funding agreement. 

We earn a commission when a environmental structured settlement annuity, funding agreement, reinsurance or other funding vehicles are placed.

CALL 888-325-8640 

for more information or to discuss the viability of the environmental structured settlement approach for a clean up project in which you, your client, or insured have interest.

Last updated April 6, 2023