part iI / item 8 A liability of $894 million was recorded as of December 31, 2011 to cover the estimated cost of asbestos claims now pending or sub- sequently asserted through 2021, of which approximately 80% is attributable to settlement and defense costs for future claims pro- jected to be filed through 2021. The liability is reduced when cash payments are made in respect of settled claims and defense costs. The liability was $796 million as of December 31, 2012. It is not possible to forecast when cash payments related to the asbestos liability will be fully expended; however, it is expected such cash payments will continue for a number of years past 2021, due to the significant proportion of future claims included in the estimated asbestos liability and the lag time between the date a claim is filed and when it is resolved. None of these estimated costs have been discounted to present value due to the inability to reliably forecast the timing of payments. The current portion of the total estimated liability at December 31, 2012 was $92 million and represents the Company’s best estimate of total asbestos costs expected to be paid during the twelve-month period. Such amount is based upon the HR&A model together with the Company’s prior year payment experience for both settlement and defense costs. InsuranceCoverageandReceivables. Prior to 2005, a significant portion of the Company’s settlement and defense costs were paid by its primary insurers. With the exhaustion of that primary coverage, the Company began negotiations with its excess insurers to reimburse the Company for a portion of its settlement and/or defense costs as incurred. To date, the Company has entered into agreements providing for such reimbursements, known as “coverage-in-place”, with eleven of its excess insurer groups. Under such coverage-in-place agreements, an insurer’s policies remain in force and the insurer undertakes to provide coverage for the Company’s present and future asbestos claims on specified terms and conditions that address, among other things, the share of asbestos claims costs to be paid by the insurer, payment terms, claims handling procedures and the expiration of the insurer’s obligations. Similarly, under a variant of coverage-in-place, the Company has entered into an agreement with a group of insurers confirming the aggregate amount of available coverage under the subject policies and setting forth a schedule for future reimburse- ment payments to the Company based on aggregate indemnity and defense payments made. In addition, with eight of its excess insurer groups, the Company entered into policy buyout agree- ments, settling all asbestos and other coverage obligations for an agreed sum, totaling $81.1 million in aggregate. Reimbursements from insurers for past and ongoing settlement and defense costs allocable to their policies have been made in accordance with these coverage-in-place and other agreements. All of these agreements include provisions for mutual releases, indemnification of the insurer and, for coverage-in-place, claims handling procedures. With the agreements referenced above, the Company has concluded settlements with all but one of its solvent excess insurers whose policies are expected to respond to the aggregate costs included in the updated liability estimate. That insurer, which issued a single applicable policy, has been paying the shares of defense and indemnity costs the Company has allocated to it, subject to a reser- vation of rights. There are no pending legal proceedings between the Company and any insurer contesting the Company’s asbestos claims under its insurance policies. In conjunction with developing the aggregate liability estimate referenced above, the Company also developed an estimate of probable insurance recoveries for its asbestos liabilities. In developing this estimate, the Company considered its coverage-in- place and other settlement agreements described above, as well as a number of additional factors. These additional factors include the financial viability of the insurance companies, the method by which losses will be allocated to the various insurance policies and the years covered by those policies, how settlement and defense costs will be covered by the insurance policies and interpretation of the effect on coverage of various policy terms and limits and their interrelationships. In addition, the timing and amount of reimbursements will vary because the Company’s insurance cover- age for asbestos claims involves multiple insurers, with different policy terms and certain gaps in coverage. In addition to consulting with legal counsel on these insurance matters, the Company retained insurance consultants to assist management in the estimation of probable insurance recoveries based upon the aggregate liability estimate described above and assuming the con- tinued viability of all solvent insurance carriers. Based upon the analysis of policy terms and other factors noted above by the Company’s legal counsel, and incorporating risk mitigation judg- ments by the Company where policy terms or other factors were not certain, the Company’s insurance consultants compiled a model indicating how the Company’s historical insurance policies would respond to varying levels of asbestos settlement and defense costs and the allocation of such costs between such insurers and the Company. Using the estimated liability as of December 31, 2011 (for claims filed or expected to be filed through 2021), the insurance consultant’s model forecasted that approximately 25% of the liability would be reimbursed by the Company’s insurers. While there are overall limits on the aggregate amount of insurance avail- able to the Company with respect to asbestos claims, those overall limits were not reached by the total estimated liability currently recorded by the Company, and such overall limits did not influence the Company in its determination of the asset amount to record. The proportion of the asbestos liability that is allocated to certain insurance coverage years, however, exceeds the limits of available insurance in those years. The Company allocates to itself the amount of the asbestos liability (for claims filed or expected to be filed through 2021) that is in excess of available insurance coverage allocated to such years. An asset of $225 million was recorded as of December 31, 2011 representing the probable insurance reimbursement for such claims expected through 2021. The asset is reduced as reimbursements and other payments from insurers are received. The asset was $205 million as of December 31, 2012. The Company reviews the aforementioned estimated reimburse- ment rate with its insurance consultants on a periodic basis in order to confirm its overall consistency with the Company’s estab- lished reserves. The reviews encompass consideration of the per- formance of the insurers under coverage-in-place agreements and the effect of any additional lump-sum payments under policy buy- out agreements. Since December 2011, there have been no developments that have caused the Company to change the esti- mated 25% rate, although actual insurance reimbursements vary from period to period, and will decline over time, for the reasons cited above. 55