A client owned a hotel with an attached outdoor plaza that was subsequently determined to overlay a former gasoline station that had been out-of-use for decades. While an underlying environmental insurance policy would protect all corporate assets, the absence of the 1970’s-era closure documentation of the underground tank’s removal was not in accordance with current standards and expectations. As a result, the insurance underwriter was reluctant to extend coverage to this property. This lack of coverage would result in the asset lacking the security that shareholders were expecting. However, closing and removing the plaza infrastructure was not favorable, either.

Rather than undergoing a damaging, disruptive, and possibly intrusive investigation, Cameron-Cole developed a “what-if” modeling approach to determine how projected performance would be affected by changes in the assumptions upon which projections are based. This approach presumed a volume of fuel had leaked out of the tank from the time the station closed and was free to flow off site. It was calculated that by the present day, nearly all of the fuel would have been consumed by bacteria in the soil, leaving nothing to investigate. Cameron-Cole's “thought experiment” of employing a conceptual model was found to be sufficient evidence to the underwriter and, subsequently, the property qualified for full insurance coverage.