Why your General Liability policy is NOT a Pollution Policy

A General Liability (GL) policy will almost always have at least one kind of pollution exclusion if not more. The most common
pollution exclusion is found in the GL policy form itself, usually as Exclusion f. In addition, a lot of carriers will include pollution
exclusions via endorsement to the policy. For example, the Total Pollution Exclusion is a common one and the Fungi or Bacteria
Exclusion is another that you will see a lot. The main point to take away from these exclusions is that they are designed to kick out coverage for Bodily Injury (BI) and Property Damage (PD) arising out of the discharge, dispersal, seepage, migration, release or
escape of “pollutants”. It’s clear that it is not insurance carriers’ intent for GL policies to pick up coverage for pollution-related
losses.