When an oil spill happens, particularly at domestic dwellings, the primary consideration is for the protection of the property owner and any other person that may come into contact with the spill.

Our specialist teams, through a comprehensive site survey, will rapidly assess the risks to human health, property, third parties and the environment.

Stage One: Walkover Survey

Following receipt of instruction from your Insurers a MEL representative will call you within 24 hours to arrange an appointment to visit your property, this will normally be within the next 5 working days.

Security

We are required when making or receiving a call to/from a Policyholder, to carry out identification and verification checks to ascertain the identity of the person on the phone. During our visit we will need to ask you for some personal information in order that we can undertake future security checks during our communications with yourself.

Survey

We are required when making or receiving a call to/from a Policyholder, to carry out identification and verification checks to ascertain the identity of the person on the phone. During our visit we will need to ask you for some personal information in order that we can undertake future security checks during our communications with yourself.

On completion of our initial visit we will submit our findings and recommendations to the Insurance Company usually within 5 working days. Dependant on our findings we may need to undertake more detailed investigation works (Stage 2). If this isn’t required then we will proceed directly to Stage 3 (Remedial Works) upon receipt of written instruction from your insurer.

Emergency Works

Occasionally some projects require immediate attention, if this is the case then we will contact the Insurance company during our initial visit and seek approval for any emergency works.

Stage Two: Site Investigation

If further investigation works are required these will normally commence within 7 working days of us receiving written instruction from your Insurer. We can usually complete the investigation works within 2 days but on occasions it may take a day or two extra depending on the complexity of the spill. We will notify you during our initial visit if this is likely to be the case.

During the investigation we will be undertaking works to determine the vertical and lateral extent of the oil spill and to assess the potential impacts the spill may have caused. In most cases samples of soil/water will be taken and sent to an independent laboratory for analysis. Typically it takes 10 working days to process the laboratory samples, so on completion of the site investigation we will submit our report to the insurance company within 15–20 working days.

Stage Three: Remediation

The next stage of the process is to undertake the remedial works. These works will commence within 5–10 working days of receiving a written instruction to proceed.

This stage of the process can be disruptive and time consuming but we will do our best to keep the disruption and time frame to a minimum. All works carried out will be in line with the agreed Remediation Plan and ALL works carried out will be signed off by you the client to ensure that you are 100% satisfied.

Stage Four: Validation

On completion of the remedial works we will take validation samples and submit them to an independent laboratory to confirm that the works have been undertaken as planned.

A report will be compiled detailing the works that have been undertaken complete with the validation data. This report will be submitted to your insurer for their records.

Stage Five: Re-instatement

Once we have achieved the required clean-up criteria, your property will be ready for re-instatement. These works will normally be undertaken by MEL.

Your property will be reinstated on a ‘like for like replacement basis’ i.e. the same as it was before the oil spill happened. On completion of the works our Project Manager will request that you jointly view the reinstatement and if you are happy with the finished works confirm this by signing our Completion Form.