API, Inc. Asbestos Trust Claims

If you or someone in your family worked around the asbestos insulation that API installed across Minnesota, North Dakota, and the upper Midwest, and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, the company left behind a trust built to pay these claims.

API, Inc., known today as API Construction Co., was a Minnesota insulation contractor that sold, distributed, and installed asbestos-containing insulation, on boilers, pipes, ductwork, and industrial equipment, through the early 1970s, working mainly across Minnesota and North Dakota. When the asbestos claims came, API reorganized in bankruptcy and funded a trust, set up with an estimated $94 million from the company and several of its insurers, to pay current and future claims. The insulation business itself reorganized and is thriving today as part of a large specialty-contracting group.

You don't need to have kept your old records, and you don't need to remember which company made the insulation you worked around. The trust pays on documented exposure to API asbestos, and reconstructing your history, from work records, job sites, and coworkers' accounts, is our job, not yours. If you can tell us where you worked and when, we have a place to start.

What the API trust pays, by disease

API was a regional contractor, and its trust values claims by the state whose law applies: a Minnesota value and a lower North Dakota value for each disease. Claims from other states fall between the two, set from comparable settlement data and capped at the Minnesota value. Values below are before the payment percentage is applied.

Your actual payment is the value times the trust's current payment percentage, 44%, so a Minnesota mesothelioma claim of $316,250 pays about $139,150. The trust pays a set value for each disease and state rather than a negotiated range, though it can pay more in the rare case where API was the overwhelming source of someone's asbestos exposure. Which state's value applies is a question the trust decides from your exposure history, and sorting that out is part of the work.

Read these as one trust's share, not your whole recovery. The dollars above are what the API trust pays on its own. But API was a contractor that installed other companies' insulation, so the same exposure that supports an API claim almost always supports claims against the manufacturers whose products API installed. Each of those makers may have its own trust or lawsuit, and the claims run in parallel without canceling each other out. So the number that matters for your family is the total across all of them. Learn more about how asbestos trust claims work.

How API insulation exposed workers to asbestos

API was an insulation contractor. From the 1920s through the early 1970s, it sold, distributed, and installed asbestos-containing insulation on the hot equipment of industry, the boilers, pipes, ducts, and vessels in power plants, factories, and other facilities across Minnesota, North Dakota, and the surrounding region. The work put asbestos into the air the whole time it was being done.

The exposure came from the ordinary tasks of the trade, not from anything unusual:

• Cutting and fitting insulation. Sizing pipe covering and block to fit meant sawing, cutting, and shaping it, which released fiber every time. See how asbestos pipe and block insulation caused exposure.
• Mixing and applying insulating cement. The cement troweled onto fittings and joints came as a dry powder, mixed with water on site, dusty in the bag and dusty in the mixing.
• Tearing out old insulation. The dustiest work came on repairs and replacements, when crews ripped out old, degraded, friable (crumbly and dusty) lagging to put new insulation in. Removing old material released far more fiber than installing it new.

None of this stayed with one trade. The dust reached API's own insulators and the other workers on the same sites, the pipefitters, boilermakers, and laborers who shared the boiler rooms and mechanical spaces, across power plants, factories, and other industrial settings.

API didn't manufacture the insulation; it installed other companies' products, and its principal supplier was Owens Corning. That matters for the claim, because it means an API claim is rarely the only one a worker can bring, a point we come back to below.

How the API bankruptcy created the asbestos trust

API's bankruptcy came about in a way that's worth understanding, because it shaped who the trust is for. Through the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the big manufacturers of asbestos insulation went bankrupt one after another, including Owens Corning, API's principal supplier. As those manufacturers left the tort system, the contractors and distributors who had installed their products, companies like API, became the main remaining targets in asbestos lawsuits. That pressure, together with limits on its insurance, led API to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2005.

Filing didn't erase the claims. It moved them into a process built to handle them all at once, a part of the federal Bankruptcy Code written specifically for asbestos cases, Section 524(g). It lets a court set up a trust to take over a company's asbestos liability and issue a channeling injunction, a court order that routes every asbestos claim, the ones already filed and the ones still years from surfacing, into the trust instead of the company. From that point on, the trust pays the claims in the company's place.

API's trust opened in late 2005, and the reorganization plan was confirmed in 2006. It was funded with an estimated $94 million, combining a contribution of about $26 million from the company, structured as a note paid in installments and secured by the company's own stock, with settlements from several of API's insurers that have come in over a period of years. That trust is what you file against today; the company can no longer be sued for the asbestos in its old work.

The business is alive and thriving. API's insulation business didn't disappear. It reorganized and continues today as API Construction Co., part of a large and successful specialty-contracting group with operations across the country. Two things follow for your claim. The records and history behind your exposure still exist, so it can be reconstructed. And because the trust, funded by the company years ago, is what pays these claims, filing yours takes nothing from the operating business or the people it employs today.

What the API trust pays, and why it's a percentage

The trust pays a set amount based on your diagnosis, scaled to how serious the disease is, with mesothelioma at the top, and adjusted for which state's law applies to your claim. The full breakdown by disease and state is in the table near the top of this page.

Whatever the value of your claim, the trust doesn't pay it in full. It pays a percentage of it, currently 44%, a little under half of each dollar of a claim's value.

That number is there for the same reason it's there in every bankruptcy: when a company can't cover everything it owes, the law shares what there is across everyone it harmed, so that everyone gets a fair portion instead of a lucky few collecting in full and everyone else collecting nothing. An asbestos trust has to do that across time as well, because these diseases can take thirty to fifty years to surface, so the trust holds back enough for the people who haven't been diagnosed yet.

API's percentage has moved in both directions. The trust paid 44% for a stretch, reduced the rate to 22% in 2023 to keep enough in reserve for the claims still to come, and then, effective September 1, 2026, raised it back to 44%, with supplemental payments to bring claims approved at the lower rate up to the new one. The percentage is reviewed at least once a year, so it can change again in either direction. We work from whatever the trust is paying when your claim is filed, and we confirm it against the trust's current notice rather than any older figure.

Is the API trust still able to pay?

Yes, though it's a small trust, so the honest answer comes with some context. Here's where it stands from its most recent annual report.

• About $7.7 million on hand, and it grew slightly in 2025. At the end of 2025 the trust held roughly $7.7 million in net assets, and the figure ticked up over the year, because its investment income ran ahead of what it paid out.
• A small number of claims. API was a small regional contractor, so relatively few people were exposed to its products, and the trust handles only a handful of claims in a typical year. Fewer claims means less strain on a small fund, but it also means this was never going to be one of the large trusts.
• Funded by the company and its insurers. The trust was set up with an estimated $94 million from API and several of its insurers, drawn in over a period of years rather than all at once. The company's final note payments are due by 2027, and from there the trust runs mainly on what it has accumulated and what its investments earn.

A small trust has less cushion than a large one, and this one recently reduced its payment percentage, both reasons an API claim is best pursued as part of a broader recovery rather than relied on by itself. But the trust is open, funded, and paying right now, and a claim filed today is paid on the current schedule.

Who qualifies for an API trust claim

A trust claim rests on two things: a qualifying asbestos diagnosis, and proof that you were exposed to API asbestos materials. The diagnosis side is medical. The exposure side is where the trust's rules come in.

Your diagnosis, with a ten-year latency. The trust recognizes five disease categories, mesothelioma at the top, then lung cancer, other cancers, asbestosis, and pleural disease. Each requires medical proof of the disease and a latency of at least ten years between your first asbestos exposure and your diagnosis. Because these diseases typically take far longer than ten years to appear, that latency requirement is almost always met. Mesothelioma needs a diagnosis and qualifying exposure, without the heavy-dose threshold some trusts impose; the cancers and asbestosis categories also ask for evidence of an underlying asbestos-related condition.

Which state's value applies. Because API priced claims by state, part of the work on an API claim is establishing which value applies to yours, the Minnesota value, the North Dakota value, or a figure based on comparable data from another state. That's a value question the trust decides from your exposure history, and we develop the evidence for it. Filing deadlines are a separate matter that turns on your state's law; we cover those in our state-by-state guide.

Family members can qualify too. The trust recognizes take-home exposure: if an API worker, or a tradesman on an API job site, carried the dust home, a spouse who laundered the work clothes or a child in the household can file on the worker's exposure history, the same history that supports the worker's own claim. Learn more about take-home or secondary asbestos exposure.

How the API, Inc. trust's approved site list works

The API trust keeps a list of the job sites where the company is known to have installed asbestos insulation. Finding your worksite on it is important because API was the contractor doing the insulation work there, so the list places its asbestos work where you were. But that's the starting point of a claim, not the whole of it.

Being at a site where API worked isn't the same as being exposed to the dust that work created. The trust asks both questions: whether API's asbestos work was present, and whether what you did there would have put that fiber in your air. So we look at what you actually did, and at the API crews working around you. API installed asbestos insulation on boilers, pipes, ductwork, and industrial equipment, and that work released fiber when covering was cut and fitted and, most of all, when old, heat-degraded insulation was torn out, turning friable (crumbly and dusty) material into airborne dust. Whether you were on an API crew doing that work or one of the other trades sharing the site while they did, we use the exposure record on asbestos pipe covering, block, and spray insulation, together with your work history, to connect your tasks to that exposure. The list puts API's work at your site; the task evidence is what ties it to you.

The list isn't the whole story either, and this is where people wrongly count themselves out. API worked mainly across Minnesota, North Dakota, and the upper Midwest over several decades, and no list compiled long after the fact captures every job; a building where API installed or stripped insulation may not appear, or may be recorded under an owner or a name that has since changed. Not being on the list doesn't disqualify you; it means we document the exposure another way, through work history, building and contract records, and coworkers' accounts. We check the list first, but we don't stop there. You can also search our directory of asbestos exposure sites to see whether the place you worked is already documented.

How an API claim gets filed

A trust claim isn't a lawsuit, and that surprises people who expect a courtroom. There's no judge, no jury, no deposition, and no defense lawyer arguing the other side. You're not suing anyone. You're submitting a documented claim to a fund that already exists to pay it, and the trust reviews it against its written rules and pays on its schedule.

What the claim needs is proof of two things: your diagnosis, and your exposure to API asbestos. Putting that together is our job, not yours. We gather the medical records, reconstruct the work history, identify the job sites where API worked, and prepare the claim the way the trust requires. You don't need to have kept paperwork or remember product names to start.

The API trust has been open and paying since 2005 and is still accepting claims today, so the door isn't closed. The fuller mechanics of how trust claims are prepared, filed, and paid are laid out in our guide to how asbestos trust claims work. When you call, we'll tell you what your specific claim is likely to involve and how the timeline tends to run.

An API claim is rarely the only one

Here's the part that changes the math for most families: the API trust is usually one claim among several, and the others come from the same work.

API was a contractor. It didn't make the insulation it installed; it bought it from manufacturers and put it in. So the same job that exposed you to API's asbestos exposed you to the products of the companies API bought from, its principal supplier was Owens Corning, and there were others. Many of those manufacturers went bankrupt and left their own trusts, so the same work history that supports your API claim usually supports a series of others, and because each trust reviews and pays independently, the claims don't compete. They add up.

This is why the thorough exposure investigation is worth so much, and it's especially true with a small trust like API's. Each trust pays its own fraction, and API's is modest, but a work history that turns up many trusts instead of a few can change the total on a mesothelioma claim by a wide margin. We walk through a full worked example, several trusts totaled across one career, in our guide to mesothelioma trust settlement values.

Even stacked across many trusts, trust claims are still only one part of an API recovery, and some of the other parts can be larger. The full set of channels, including the lawsuits and benefits that run alongside the trusts, is laid out in the recovery options on this page.

Sources of compensation beyond the API trust

An API claim usually sits inside a larger recovery, and the channels run in parallel without canceling one another out. We file across all of them that apply.

• Asbestos bankruptcy trusts. API is one, and because API installed other companies' insulation, the same work history almost always reaches the trusts of the manufacturers whose products it put in. They review and pay independently, so they stack. Learn more about how asbestos trust claims work.
• Lawsuits against solvent manufacturers. Not every asbestos maker went bankrupt. The makers of the products at your worksites that are still in business can be sued directly for selling a product they knew was dangerous, and a lawsuit can recover more than a trust claim, though it takes longer. Learn more about asbestos product liability lawsuits.
• Premises liability against the site owners. The power plants, factories, and other facilities where API's insulation work was done can be held responsible for the conditions they allowed, separate from the contractor and the companies that made the products. Learn more about premises liability lawsuits.
• Federal and disability benefits. These depend on where and how the work was done, and they're paid on top of the trust and lawsuit recovery. Military service can support VA disability benefits, civilian shipyard work can support Longshore benefits (LHWCA, the federal program for maritime and harbor workers), civilian work at a federal facility can support FECA benefits (the Federal Employees' Compensation Act), and Social Security disability is available to anyone whose illness stops them from working. Learn about asbestos disability and benefit claims.

Your API trust claim has no defenses to answer. It's a paper claim: no opposing lawyer, no deposition, no courtroom, no one arguing the other side. API settled that question when the trust was funded, and the trust either pays the claim or it doesn't, on its written rules.

Defenses only come up on the lawsuit side, the claims that run alongside the trust against the companies still in business that made the products API installed and the owners of the sites where the work was done. Those defendants raise the same handful of arguments they raise in most asbestos cases, and none of them is new to us. The short version is that each one describes a cleaner, smaller version of the work than the one your loved one actually did, and the evidence answers it.