Hercules Chemical Asbestos Trust Claims

If you or someone in your family worked on furnaces, boilers, or plumbing and heating systems, and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, the Hercules Chemical Company name may come up in your case. Hercules made chemical and specialty products for plumbers and heating contractors, and a 1930s can label in our library, for Hercules Asbestos Furnace Cement, carries the Hercules Chemical Co., Inc. name.

Hercules went through bankruptcy and set up a bankruptcy trust to pay asbestos claims. You can file against it. But we want to be honest with you up front. The Hercules trust pays only 2% of a claim's scheduled value today, so a Hercules claim on its own brings a small amount. Its value is as one piece of a larger set of claims, because the same work often involved other companies' asbestos too.

You don't need old receipts or brand names to start. Piecing together the work history is our job, not yours.

What Hercules Chemical made, and who used it

Hercules Chemical Company, Inc. was a long-established maker of chemical and specialty products for the commercial plumbing and heating industry. When it filed for bankruptcy in 2008, the company said it faced more than 7,000 asbestos lawsuits over a product made before 1983, and when it came out of bankruptcy in 2010 it said it had fought those suits for more than 20 years over that single product. Trade press at the time quoted the company as saying the product held a small amount of asbestos that was fully encapsulated. Whatever the amount, the trust exists to pay claims for exposure to Hercules asbestos products.

The company's public statements did not name the product, and we do not know for certain which one it was. Our library holds a one-pound can label for Hercules Asbestos Furnace Cement that carries the Hercules Chemical Co., Inc. name. Our catalog dates it to 1933. You can see it in our product images collection. As the name says, it was made for furnace work, which fits the trades the trust accepts, listed below.

The trust's own rules show who it expects to have been exposed. Its Trust Distribution Procedures list the trades it accepts, including:

• Plumbers and pipefitters, steamfitters, and their helpers and apprentices. See our page on pipefitters and plumbers.
• Boiler workers of every kind: boilermakers, boiler mechanics, operators, tenders, and inspectors. See boilermakers.
• Furnace and heating workers: furnace installers and repairmen, oil-burner servicemen, and HVAC installers. See HVAC and appliance workers.
• Insulators, bricklayers, and refractory workers. See insulators and refractory bricklayers.
• Maintenance and plant workers, including millwrights, power plant and refinery workers, sheet metal workers, and building maintenance staff.

The list also includes carpenters, construction laborers, and custodians. If your job is not on the list, the trust can still consider the claim, but you must describe the exposure yourself. A coworker's statement is not enough unless the worker has died.

The Hercules bankruptcy and the trust

Hercules filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 22, 2008, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (Case No. 08-25553). The case was later handled in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey (Case No. 08-27822). That court approved the reorganization plan on December 22, 2009, and the federal district court in New Jersey approved it on January 6, 2010.

The plan took effect on February 9, 2010. It moved Hercules' asbestos liability into the Hercules Chemical Company, Inc. Asbestos Trust, a Section 524(g) trust. The company came out of bankruptcy and kept making plumbing products. The trust began taking claims in late 2010. Its Initial Claims Filing Date, which sets the filing deadlines and the order claims are handled in, was May 8, 2011. A claims processor handles the claims, and each claim needs a $15 filing fee.

What the Hercules trust pays

The trust's Trust Distribution Procedures set five disease levels, each with a fixed scheduled value. The trust posts these procedures on its website.

Source: Hercules Chemical Company, Inc. Asbestos Trust Distribution Procedures, §5.3(a)(3) and §5.3(b), as posted on the trust's website (the 2009 plan-exhibit version). The posted copy leaves the maximum values blank, so they are not shown here. The right-hand column is our arithmetic: scheduled value times the 2.0% payment percentage.

The "other cancer" level covers colorectal, laryngeal, esophageal, pharyngeal, and stomach cancer, when there are also signs of asbestos disease on both sides of the chest, such as lung scarring or pleural plaques.

The payment percentage, and how it has fallen

A trust pays a set share of each claim's value so it can keep paying people diagnosed years from now. The Hercules trust's share has dropped several times:

• 6.7% from the Initial Claims Filing Date, May 8, 2011
• 4.7% from March 30, 2019
• 2.87% from July 21, 2021
• 2.0% from October 17, 2022, by resolution of the trustee

The 2.0% rate is still the one shown on the trust's website, and the trust's 2025 annual report (dated May 1, 2026) carries the same figure. That is the current rate as of November 2026.

The trust's finances

The trust is small and shrinking. Its net claimants' equity went from about $7.9 million at the end of 2010 to about $3.6 million at the end of 2025. In 2025 it received 787 claims, paid 207, and paid out roughly $223,000 to $231,000, depending on which part of its report you read. Year-by-year detail is in the Hercules trust's annual reports, each with our plain-English summary.

How a Hercules claim works

Every claim goes through Expedited Review. The trust checks the claim against fixed medical and exposure criteria. If the claim meets them, the trust offers the scheduled value for that disease level, times the payment percentage. Unlike many trusts, the Hercules procedures do not offer a separate individual review to seek a higher value. A claimant who disagrees can take the dispute to arbitration under the trust's rules. Claims are paid in the order they are approved, using a first-in, first-out queue.

Exposure has to come before 1986. For mesothelioma, the claimant needs a diagnosis and credible exposure to a Hercules asbestos product. For every other level, the trust also requires:

• six months of exposure to Hercules asbestos before 1986, and
• "Significant Occupational Exposure": at least five years of asbestos work, with at least two before 1986. The work can be handling asbestos, making or repairing asbestos products, or working regularly next to people who did. See occupational exposure.

Proof can be ordinary evidence. The trust accepts a sworn statement from the claimant, a coworker, or (if the worker has died) a family member, along with invoices, employment records, or other credible evidence. Remember the trade list above: for jobs not on it, the first-hand rule applies.

Family members can file. Someone who got sick from dust brought home on a worker's clothes can file if the worker would have met the exposure rules. See take-home exposure.

Filing deadlines. The trust follows the statute of limitations in effect where the claim belongs. For anyone diagnosed after the August 22, 2008 bankruptcy filing, the procedures allow filing within three years of diagnosis or three years after the Initial Claims Filing Date, whichever is later. Since that second date passed long ago, the practical rule today is three years from diagnosis, or longer if your state allows it. Wrongful-death and state deadlines can be shorter, so call soon.

Why a Hercules claim is one piece of a bigger case

At 2.0%, a Hercules mesothelioma claim pays about $1,400. We file it when the facts support it, but it is not where the recovery comes from.

The plumbers, steamfitters, boiler workers, and furnace mechanics in the trades the trust accepts usually worked with asbestos from many other companies too. That included pipe and boiler insulation, gaskets and packing, and other cements and refractory materials. Many of those makers also went bankrupt and left trusts, and several of those trusts pay a much larger share. Other makers are still in business and can be sued. The same diagnosis and work history may support claims against other trusts and companies, and each one that pays does so separately.

That's why our first step is a full work history, not a single brand name. To learn more, read our guide to how asbestos trust claims work and our page on mesothelioma lawsuits.