Eagle-Picher Asbestos Trust Claims

If you or someone in your family worked with Eagle-Picher insulation or insulating cement, or around those who did, and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, the company left behind one of the country's oldest and largest asbestos trusts, built to pay these claims.

From the 1930s into the 1970s, Eagle-Picher was a leading maker of high-temperature asbestos insulation and insulating cement, products that by the 1970s were in nearly every shipyard, power plant, steel mill, and petrochemical plant in the country. The volume of asbestos disease drove the company into bankruptcy, and the reorganization set aside about $730 million in a trust that's been paying mesothelioma and other asbestos claims since 1997. Nearly thirty years on, that trust has paid out more than it started with and is still open and paying.

You don't need to have kept your old records, and you don't need to remember the brand on the bag or the box. If you worked in one of several heavy industries, the trust simply presumes Eagle-Picher's products were there, and reconstructing the rest from your work history is our job, not yours. If you can tell us the kind of work you did and where, we have a place to start.

What the Eagle-Picher trust pays, and the choice between two tracks

Eagle-Picher works differently from most asbestos trusts. There's no single fixed schedule of disease values. Instead, a claim is filed on one of two tracks, and choosing the right one is one of the most important things we do, because for a serious diagnosis the two can pay very different amounts.

For mesothelioma, the fixed $6,500 fast payment is almost never the right choice. It looks appealing because it's paid at "100%," but 100% of a small fixed amount is still a small amount. The Individualized Review value for mesothelioma, set to what Eagle-Picher used to pay to settle a meso case and then reduced by the 35% percentage, is typically far higher. The fast fixed payment mainly suits non-malignant claimants who want something certain now while keeping the right to a larger claim if a malignancy develops later. We'll tell you plainly which track fits your situation, and why.

A trust's payment is one trust's share of a case, not the whole of it. Most people exposed to Eagle-Picher insulation handled other companies' products too, which usually means other trusts and often lawsuits on top of this one. We explain below why an Eagle-Picher claim is rarely the only one.

How Eagle-Picher products exposed workers to asbestos

Eagle-Picher started as a lead, zinc, and battery company, and by the late 1930s it had moved into insulation in a big way, with its own asbestos and a line of high-temperature products. For about four decades it was one of the country's major makers of asbestos insulating cement, pipe covering, and block insulation, sold under names like Super 66, One-Cote, Hylo, and Supertemp. Some of those products were nearly half asbestos.

The exposure came from how the products were used:

• Mixing and applying insulating cement. The cements arrived as a dry powder, poured and stirred with water on site and troweled onto boilers, vessels, and fittings. Mixing the dry powder was among the dustiest tasks on any industrial job. See how asbestos insulating cement caused exposure.
• Cutting and fitting pipe covering and block. Sizing and installing the pipe covering and block insulation released fiber, and so did sawing and shaping it to fit. See how asbestos pipe and block insulation caused exposure.
• Tearing out the old material. Years later, ripping out degraded, friable (crumbly and dusty) insulation to reach a pipe or vessel released far more fiber than installing it new.
• Breathing a neighbor's dust, and carrying it home. The tradesmen working nearby breathed the same air, and the dust came home on work clothes to the families who laundered them.

Because Eagle-Picher products were the standard in heavy industry, the exposure reached a wide range of workers: insulators, pipefitters, boilermakers, steelworkers, railroad workers, bricklayers, and the Navy sailors and shipyard crews who worked among it in tight, unventilated spaces. Shipyard and maritime work and power generation carried especially heavy exposure. The measurements that document how much fiber these products released live on the product pages linked above.

How the Eagle-Picher bankruptcy created the asbestos trust

Eagle-Picher had made asbestos insulation and cement from the 1930s into the mid-1970s. By the 1980s the lawsuits over that history had become more than the company could carry, and in 1991 it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the kind that lets a business reorganize rather than shut down. After several years, a plan of reorganization was confirmed in 1996, and the trust began accepting claims in 1997.

Asbestos bankruptcies are resolved under section 524(g) of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, through a court order known as a channeling injunction that routes every asbestos claim, the ones already filed and the ones not yet brought, into a trust instead of the company. The company funds the trust up front, and in return it's protected from being sued over asbestos again. Eagle-Picher funded the trust with about $730 million, in cash and stock of the reorganized company. That trust is what you file against today, and it has operated independently under court supervision ever since.

The company that made the asbestos products is long gone in its original form. Eagle-Picher reorganized, changed hands more than once, and the name now belongs to a different business, EaglePicher Technologies, that makes batteries and power systems for the aerospace, defense, and medical industries. That modern company makes no asbestos products and has no connection to the old liability or the trust. The claims here concern the asbestos insulation and cement Eagle-Picher made decades ago, and they're paid by the trust, which stands on its own.

What the Eagle-Picher trust pays, and why it's a percentage

The two tracks above are the heart of how this trust pays. The Discounted Cash Payment is a small fixed amount, paid in full and fast. Individualized Review sets a value to match what Eagle-Picher historically paid to settle a comparable claim, then pays a percentage of that value.

The reason there's a percentage on the Individualized Review track is the same principle behind every bankruptcy: when a company can't cover everything it owes, the law spreads what exists across everyone it harmed, so a few don't collect in full while everyone else gets nothing. Eagle-Picher's asbestos liability was estimated in the billions, far more than the roughly $730 million the trust was funded with, so it pays a share of each individualized claim and holds the rest back for the families who haven't been diagnosed yet.

The encouraging part is the direction it's moving. The trust's payment percentage is currently 35%, which the trustees raised from 33% in 2023 on the advice of an outside actuarial study, the first change in either direction since 2015. A trust raising its rate after nearly thirty years of operation is a sign of a fund that has been well managed, not one running short, and it means we can speak with real confidence about what an Individualized Review claim is likely to pay. On that track the payment usually comes as two installments over about two years, with an option to take a single discounted payment sooner instead, and we walk you through which fits your circumstances.

Is the Eagle-Picher trust still able to pay?

Yes, and after nearly thirty years it's in notably good shape. Here's the picture from its most recent annual report.

• About $259 million on hand. At the end of 2025 the trust held roughly $259 million in net assets, and it grew slightly that year.
• More paid out than it started with. Since 1997 the trust has distributed more than $966 million to victims, on a base it was funded with of about $730 million, because its investments earned while it paid claims. It paid about $23 million to claimants in 2025.
• The rate went up, not down. After holding steady for years, the trust raised its payment percentage in 2023, the opposite of a fund struggling to stretch its money.

A fund that has paid out more than it was given, still holds a quarter of a billion dollars, and recently increased what it pays is about as healthy as an asbestos trust this old gets. None of that makes the money unlimited, which is why it still pays a percentage rather than the full value of each claim, but the trust is open, funded, and paying right now. We track the annual reporting and can walk through the full financial picture with you when you call.

Who qualifies for an Eagle-Picher trust claim

A claim rests on two things: a qualifying asbestos diagnosis, and credible evidence of exposure to Eagle-Picher's asbestos products. The diagnosis side is medical. The exposure side is where this trust is unusually workable, because of how broadly it recognizes where its products were used.

There's no calendar cutoff. Unlike many trusts, Eagle-Picher's rules don't turn on whether your exposure fell before a particular year. What matters is exposure to its products, together with the requirement, common to these claims, that at least ten years passed between your first asbestos exposure and your diagnosis, which is almost always met.

The medical proof is specific. The trust asks for a diagnosis from a qualified physician based on an actual physical examination, with a pathology report for mesothelioma. For an asbestos-related lung cancer or one of the other listed cancers, it also asks for evidence of an underlying non-malignant asbestos lung disease. We know exactly what records the trust expects and gather them for you.

For mesothelioma, the exposure bar is low. Mesothelioma can come from brief, limited exposure, so a meso claim turns on showing exposure to Eagle-Picher's products, not on proving years of heavy dust.

Family members can qualify too. If a worker brought Eagle-Picher dust home, a spouse who laundered the work clothes or a child in the household may file on the same exposure history.

How the trust's presumed industries and site records work

This is where Eagle-Picher stands apart. Because its products were the industry standard in certain settings, the trust presumes they were present there, so if you worked in shipyards, steel mills, petrochemical plants, power plants, or on the railroads, you generally don't have to prove Eagle-Picher's products were on your job at all. That single rule pulls a huge population of heavy-industry and Navy workers straight inside eligibility.

For settings outside those industries, the trust keeps extensive records of the employers and job sites where its products are known to have been used, thousands of locations in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. And if your worksite isn't in those records, that still doesn't disqualify you. The claim goes through traditional product identification, where we document the exposure with your work history, purchase and site records, and coworkers' accounts. There's almost always a path, and finding the right one is our job.

However you get there, presence is only half of what a claim shows. That Eagle-Picher's product was at your worksite is one question; whether the work you did put its fiber in your air is the other, and a solid claim answers both. That second part isn't a burden we hand you. Mixing the dry insulating cement, cutting and fitting the pipe covering and block, and tearing out the old degraded material were among the dustiest tasks on any industrial job, and we use the exposure record on asbestos insulating cement and asbestos pipe and block insulation, together with your work history, to connect your tasks to that exposure. The presumption puts Eagle-Picher's product at your site; the work you did is what ties it to you. You can also search our directory of asbestos exposure sites to see whether the place you worked is already documented.

How an Eagle-Picher claim gets filed

A trust claim isn't a lawsuit. There's no judge, no jury, no deposition, and no defense lawyer on the other side. You submit a documented claim to a fund that exists to pay it, and the trust reviews it against its written rules and pays. What the claim needs is proof of your diagnosis and your exposure to Eagle-Picher's products, along with the right track choice, and putting that together, including deciding between the fixed fast payment and the individualized route, is our work, not yours.

The trust has been open and paying since 1997 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 in our guide to how asbestos trust claims work. When you call, we'll tell you what your specific claim is likely to involve.

An Eagle-Picher claim is rarely the only one

Even a healthy trust like this one usually pays just one part of a recovery, because of the nature of the work.

A career around industrial insulation meant a career around many companies' products. The cement on the fittings, the covering on the pipe, the block on the vessels, and the gaskets and packing on the equipment came from different manufacturers, and a worker moved among plants, shipyards, and job sites over the years, adding more. Several of those makers went bankrupt too and left their own trusts, and others are still in business and can be sued directly. The same exposure history that supports your Eagle-Picher claim usually supports a stack of others, and because each trust reviews and pays independently, the claims add up rather than compete.

That's why the full exposure investigation matters even when one trust pays well. A work history that turns up several insulation and equipment trusts, plus lawsuits against the makers still in business, can carry a mesothelioma case well past what any single trust pays. We walk through a worked example, several trusts totaled across one career, in our guide to mesothelioma trust settlement values.

Sources of compensation beyond the Eagle-Picher trust

An Eagle-Picher 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. The Eagle-Picher trust is one, and an industrial insulation career almost always reaches several others, the makers of the other insulation, cement, gaskets, and packing on the same jobs. They review and pay independently, so they stack. how asbestos trust claims work.
• Lawsuits against solvent manufacturers. Not every asbestos maker went bankrupt. Many are still in business and 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. how asbestos product liability lawsuits work.
• Premises liability against the site owners. The shipyards, power plants, refineries, steel mills, and railroads where the work was done can be held responsible for the conditions there, separate from the companies that made the products. how premises liability claims work.
• Federal and disability benefits. These depend on where and how the work was done, and they're paid on top of the rest. Navy 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. how asbestos disability and benefit claims work.

Your Eagle-Picher trust claim has no defenses to answer. It's a paper claim: no opposing lawyer, no deposition, no courtroom. 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 makers still in business and the site owners. Those defendants raise the same handful of arguments they raise in most asbestos cases, and none of them is new to us.