It’s not “prefer”. You take that bet and it goes against you, the cleanup cost could be or exceed the value of your property and it would be dumped right in your lap and become part of country records so it would never go away. You could never escape it and you certainly would not be able to rebuild unless you cured the issue.
In my brother’s case he has $25K coverage and the cleanup costs are estimated at $250K. These are farmy properties, there are potentially underground 1938 fuel tanks you don’t even know about. This is: a 2200 sq foot very conventional stick built single story CA house, a 1000 sq ft guest house and a metal 30 x 60 “Butler” steel bldg aka barn. The barn, to me, looks like it could readily be reskinned with sheet metal, retaining the existing steel-beam skeleton but that is apparently not the case. (a good example of how “common sense” and “instinct” can destroy you) The bldg is not insurable, thus the contents would not be insurable, the concrete foundation cannot be known to be sound and the wind resistance of the structure cannot be guaranteed. So it is an impossibility for any part of that bldg to continue to exist and it has to be torn down and the foundation dug out and hauled away.
You are 100 percent correct. I should have put prefer in quotes to show it really would not be a good option by any stretch.