Federal-Mogul and Turner & Newall (T&N) Asbestos Trust Claims

If you or someone in your family worked with asbestos insulation, sprayed fireproofing, asbestos cement, or the gaskets and brake parts that came out of the Federal-Mogul family of companies, and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, there's a large trust set up to pay these claims.

At the center of it is Turner & Newall, known as T&N, once the largest asbestos company in Britain and the maker of a vast range of asbestos products, from sprayed insulation to cement sheets to textiles. The American auto-parts company Federal-Mogul bought T&N in the late 1990s and inherited its enormous asbestos liability, along with that of other asbestos makers it owned, and the weight of those claims pushed Federal-Mogul into bankruptcy. The reorganization created the Federal-Mogul Asbestos Personal Injury Trust, funded with about $635 million and still holding hundreds of millions today. The T&N portion of that trust is its largest part.

There's an important wrinkle we'll explain below: the trust is divided into separate parts for the different companies, and they don't all pay the same way or the same amount. You don't need to sort that out yourself, and you don't need old records or product names. Reconstructing which parts of the trust your work history reaches is our job.

What the T&N subfund pays by disease

Mesothelioma sits at the top of the T&N schedule (Level VIII): a scheduled value of $200,000, and up to $600,000 through the trust's evidence-based Individual Review track. Those are among the highest disease values of any asbestos trust, which is why we always do a thorough exposure-history investigation to determine whether filing Individual Review is warranted. These are the set values before the subfund's payment percentage is applied, and as explained below that percentage is low, so the amount that reaches a family is a share of these figures and is usually one part of a larger recovery.

These values apply to T&N claims. The same subfund also pays Flexitallic gasket claims and Ferodo brake claims, which use their own, lower value schedules, covered on the gasket and brake pages.

A trust's schedule shows what one part of one trust assigns to a diagnosis, not what a whole case is worth. Most people exposed to T&N's products were exposed to other companies' asbestos too, and often to more than one Federal-Mogul company, which usually means several claims rather than one. We explain below why a T&N claim is rarely the only one, even within this single trust.

How Turner & Newall's asbestos exposed workers

Turner & Newall was, for much of the twentieth century, one of the largest asbestos companies in the world. It mined asbestos, ran what was reportedly the world's largest asbestos factory in England, and made an enormous range of asbestos products that were sold and used throughout the United States and Canada. Where many companies made one kind of asbestos product, T&N made nearly all of them.

The products that drove the most exposure included:

• Sprayed asbestos insulation and fireproofing. T&N's Limpet spray was asbestos blown onto steel, walls, and ceilings for insulation and fire protection. Spraying it, and later cutting into or tearing it out, released enormous amounts of fiber, and this material frequently contained the more hazardous amphibole types of asbestos.
• Asbestos cement products. Cement sheets, tiles, and boards, sold under names like Trafford tile, were cut, drilled, and snapped on construction sites, releasing fiber each time.
• Insulation, board, and textiles. T&N made pipe and block insulation, heat-resistant board, and asbestos cloth, yarn, and felt, the textiles used for protective clothing, blankets, and packing.

Because these products ran through construction, industry, shipbuilding, and the trades, the exposure reached insulators and laggers, construction workers, the sprayers who applied the fireproofing, shipyard and Navy workers, factory workers, and the demolition crews who tore the material out decades later. As with all asbestos work, the dust also came home on clothes to the families who laundered them.

The Federal-Mogul bankruptcy, and how its trust is built

Federal-Mogul was an American auto-parts company that grew by acquisition, and in the late 1990s it bought several companies carrying heavy asbestos liability, most significantly the British giant Turner & Newall, along with the gasket maker Fel-Pro and others. The asbestos claims against those companies, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, overwhelmed Federal-Mogul, and in October 2001 it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The case was a long one. The plan was confirmed in 2007, and the Federal-Mogul Asbestos Personal Injury Trust took effect that December, set up under Section 524(g) of the Bankruptcy Code, the law that lets a court route a company's asbestos claims, present and future, into a trust that takes over the liability.

Here's the wrinkle that makes this trust different from most. Because Federal-Mogul had absorbed several different asbestos companies, the trust is split into four separate subfunds, each paying the claims of a different company group, from its own money, on its own terms:

• The T&N subfund pays claims for Turner & Newall and its U.S. subsidiaries, Flexitallic (industrial gaskets) and Ferodo (brakes). This is the largest subfund and the subject of this page; the Flexitallic gasket and Ferodo brake claims are covered on their own pages.
• The FMP subfund pays claims for Federal-Mogul Products and its brake-and-friction predecessors, including Abex and Wagner. Those brake claims have their own page.
• The Fel-Pro and Vellumoid subfunds work differently: rather than paying on a trust schedule, those claims are settled or litigated in the court system through the trust. We cover them with the asbestos lawsuit options.

The whole trust was funded with about $635 million when it formed, drawn from shares in the reorganized Federal-Mogul company plus insurance and other recoveries, and the operating Federal-Mogul auto-parts business survived the bankruptcy and continues today under later ownership, asbestos-free and separate from the trust. The claims here concern the asbestos products these companies made decades ago, and they're paid by the trust.

What the T&N subfund pays, and why it's a percentage

The trust offers two filing tracks. Expedited Review is the fast path: if your diagnosis and exposure fit the preset criteria, the claim is paid the fixed scheduled value for your disease level. Individual Review is the evidence-based path: the trust weighs the specifics of your case and can pay up to the higher maximum value. For mesothelioma the gap between T&N's scheduled and maximum values is large, which is why we always do a thorough exposure-history investigation to determine whether filing Individual Review is warranted.

Whichever track you file, the subfund doesn't pay the full value of a claim. It pays a percentage of it, and for the T&N subfund that percentage is currently 2.9%.

That's worth understanding rather than being scared off by. Every asbestos trust has to make a limited fund last across decades, holding back enough for the people who won't be diagnosed for years, so it pays each claim a set share of full value. The number of claims against the T&N companies has been very large, well over a million filed over the trust's life, so even a substantial fund supports only a modest percentage, and the T&N percentage has been reduced over time as the trust manages for the long run, most recently from 3.9% to 2.9% on June 30, 2026. The effect is that T&N's high disease values, run through a low percentage, produce a modest per-claim figure, which is the main reason a T&N claim is almost never filed alone. We work from whatever the subfund is paying when your claim is filed, and confirm it against the trust's current notice.

Is the Federal-Mogul trust still able to pay?

Yes. It's a large, professionally managed trust that has paid out enormous sums and remains well funded. Here's the picture from its most recent annual report.

• About $440 million on hand. At the end of 2025 the whole trust held roughly $440 million in net assets available to pay claims, most of it invested, and that balance rose over the year.
• More than half a billion dollars paid from the T&N subfund alone. Over its life, the T&N subfund has paid more than $570 million to asbestos claimants, including about $20 million in 2025.
• It's managing for the long haul. The low payment percentage is how the trust keeps money available for the very large number of claims still to come, the trade-off for paying out steadily over decades.

No trust's money is unlimited, and the percentage is exactly how the trust keeps its promise to the people who haven't been diagnosed yet. But the Federal-Mogul trust is open, funded, and paying right now, and a claim filed today is paid at the current percentage. We track the annual reporting and can walk through the full financial picture with you when you call.

Who qualifies for a T&N trust claim

A claim rests on two things: a qualifying asbestos diagnosis, and documented exposure to a T&N (or other Federal-Mogul) asbestos product during the period the trust covers. The diagnosis side is medical. The exposure side is where the trust's rules come in.

The exposure has to fall before the end of 1982. The trust pays on Federal-Mogul exposure before December 31, 1982, the heart of the period these products carried asbestos. Most careers around insulation, construction, and heavy industry of that era ran through that window. We explain your options if your exposure came later in our guide to how asbestos trust claims work.

For mesothelioma, you don't need heavy exposure. Mesothelioma can come from brief, limited exposure, and the trust recognizes that, so a meso claim isn't held to the higher-dose threshold that applies to the other disease levels. Those higher levels, the lung cancer and severe asbestosis levels, ask for about six months of Federal-Mogul exposure plus Significant Occupational Exposure, roughly five years of asbestos work (with at least two of them before the end of 1982) that can add up across different jobs, including time spent working in close proximity to others doing the dusty work.

You don't need to have known the brand. What the claim needs is credible evidence of exposure to a T&N product, by your account, a coworker's, or a family member's, supported by whatever records exist. Few workers tracked which company made the insulation or cement they worked around decades ago, and the claim doesn't depend on your having done so. Reconstructing it is our job.

The trust also recognizes the worksites where T&N's asbestos was used. Exposure can be placed through the sites themselves, not just the product: the records document more than 850 worksites, across dozens of states and including the shipyards and Navy vessels where T&N's sprayed insulation was used. You can search our directory of asbestos exposure sites to see whether yours is listed. Being present at such a site isn't the same as being exposed to the asbestos there, so we tie the site or the product to the specific dusty tasks that put fiber in your air; the list puts T&N at your worksite, and the task evidence is what ties it to you.

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

A single trust, often more than one claim

For a Federal-Mogul exposure history, this is the part that changes the math, because of how the trust is built.

A worker rarely encountered just one of these companies' products. The same job might have exposed someone to T&N insulation, Flexitallic gaskets, and Ferodo or Abex brake work, and the trust treats those as separate claims against separate parts of the fund, each paid on its own schedule. The TDP specifically allows these "multiple exposure" claims. So a single Federal-Mogul exposure history can support several claims within this one trust, before you even reach the other companies' asbestos that the same career almost always involved.

And it almost always does. The insulation, cement, gaskets, and brake products a worker handled came from many makers, not just the Federal-Mogul companies, and a great many of those makers left their own trusts or are still in business and can be sued. The same diagnosis and exposure history that support a T&N claim usually support a stack of others, and because each is resolved on its own, they add up rather than compete. That stack is what carries a mesothelioma case, especially where any single percentage is low. 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 T&N subfund

A T&N 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 T&N subfund is one, and a construction or industrial career almost always reaches several other trusts, including other parts of the Federal-Mogul trust itself. They review and pay independently, so they stack. How asbestos trust claims work.
• Lawsuits against solvent manufacturers. Many asbestos makers are still in business and can be sued directly, and the Fel-Pro and Vellumoid parts of this very trust are resolved through the court system. A lawsuit can recover more than a trust claim, though it takes longer. How asbestos lawsuits work.
• Premises liability against the site owners. The plants, refineries, and construction sites that controlled the worksites 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. Because T&N's sprayed insulation and other products reached shipyards and Navy vessels, this matters here: Navy service can support VA disability benefits, and civilian shipyard work can support Longshore benefits (LHWCA, the federal program for maritime and harbor workers). Social Security disability is available to anyone whose illness stops them from working. All are paid on top of the rest. How asbestos disability and benefit claims work.

Your T&N trust claim has no defenses to answer. It's a paper claim: no opposing lawyer, no deposition, no courtroom. (The Fel-Pro and Vellumoid parts of the trust are the exception, since those run through the court system, and we handle that where it applies.)

On the lawsuit side, the makers still in business and the site owners raise the same handful of arguments they raise in most asbestos cases, and none of them is new to us.