This content was published: April 7, 2006. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Delplanche earns award for role in college's insurance money recovery
Photos and story by James Hill
Pat Delplanche, senior office assistant in Safety and Risk Management at PCC, received an employee CASH reward for her great work as a PCC staffer. Delplanche investigated information she had received about missing records in relation to an insurance claim. Through much persistence and following a trail of leads, she eventually succeeded in locating the insurance policies. Those policy documents played a key role in PCC’s recent recovery from multiple insurers totaling $407,000.
As PCC was attempting to sell the old Southeast Center facility in the summer of 2003 environmental contamination was discovered on the site. The contamination was determined to be from underground storage tanks left over from the location’s days as a service station/auto repair business prior to PCC’s ownership.
There were questions of liability and insurance coverage for the cost of the clean-up hinged on PCC being able to establish which insurers would have had responsibility dating back to the 1970s. Initial searches of insurance records in Financial Services were unable to locate those 30-year-old policy documents.
“I feel that if it was not for Pat’s persistence in locating these files, PCC would not have pursued the environmental insurance claim with past insurance companies and no settlement or money reimbursement would have occurred,” said Mark Fennell, manager of safety and risk at PCC.
Congratulations to Pat!
About James Hill
James G. Hill, an award-winning journalist and public relations writer, is the Director of Public Relations at Portland Community College. A graduate of Portland State University, James has worked as a section editor for the Newberg Graphic... more »