Tip Before Filing Your GCCF Claims

The devastation brought about by the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast has affected a lot of people, from individuals to businesses alike.

It’s hard to recover from such a problem, that’s why there are facilities that can help you file claims for the costs and damages incurred because of the oil spill last April 2010. British Petroleum or BP, who are the ones responsible for the unfortunate incident in the oil facility, has agreed to contribute funds to pay for the claims submitted by affected parties. If you are directly affected by the damages brought about by oil spill, then you should file for a Gulf Coast claim. This article will walk you through some important details regarding this claim.

To help affected parties, Gulf Coast claims are processed by GCCF or Gulf Coast Claims Facility, an independent body for the submission and resolution of claims. A neutral fund administrator heads the group, and is responsible for the decisions related to the administration and processing of such claims. You may think that this organization is paid by BP to process the claims, but in reality, the claims administrator is independent and neutral, and does not and will not report to BP regarding the decisions for each of the claims. The funding provided is not for GCCF alone, but also for the respective claims resolved, as well as administrator fees and expenses. In no way will BP decide about your claim, so you are assured of neutrality and impartiality of the results.

Some individuals or business establishments have already filed for a claim with BP prior to the establishment of the neutral body. If you’re one of them, you don’t have to worry about the processing of your claims because all the information included in your claim to BP has been transferred to the GCCF. However, you need to make sure that you’ve completed a GCCF claim form to apply for payments from the neutral body, if you haven’t done so yet. Afterwards, you’ll be assigned with a claimant ID number to hasten the application process.

Further claims should be made with the GCCF and not with BP to ensure that each claim would be treated fairly and end up with a probable resolution. So if you think you are entitled to a Gulf Coast claim following the devastating effects of the BP oil spill, go directly to GCCF to get started with your claims.

OIL SPILL AFFECTING YOUR HEALTH

With the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the quality of the air at the coast has become a major health concern.

Air quality is being closely observed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and local authorities will be informed of any possible health concerns or dangers that may exist within a given region. Aside form air quality, other parameters are also being observed, as the oil spill not only affected the air quality, but the water and its wildlife as well. These health concerns deserve to be addressed by the responsible property and thus people who are affected can file a health claim.

Significant health concerns and impacts include:

• evident effects, for instance, skin damage, headaches, nausea, confusion, respiratory difficulty, chemical pneumonitis, and other health problems.
• Serious health concerns without noticeable immediate symptoms including liver and kidney disease, lung damage, immune system suppression, abnormal hormone levels, infertility, anemia, nerve damage, mutations, cancer, and other serious health problems.
• Grave risk to pregnant women, both to their fetus’s and the mother’s health, including abnormal growth and development, skeletal deformity and other birth defects.
• Those with pre-existing medical conditions can see an aggravation of those diseases due to even short-term contact.

Whether health concerns occur depends on the individual characteristics and exposure levels, but health experts agree that no exposure is free of heath concerns. There is no “safe” level of contact to carcinogens such as benzene; crude oil also contains multiple carcinogens and mutagens.