Kentile Floors (Metex) Asbestos Trust Claims

If you laid, cut, or tore out floor tile, as a flooring installer, a tile setter, a carpenter, or even a homeowner doing your own kitchen, and a mesothelioma or other asbestos diagnosis has now come in, the tile Kentile Floors made may be part of the reason, and the company left behind a trust built to pay these claims.

For most of the twentieth century, Kentile Floors was one of the country's best-known makers of floor tile, the vinyl-asbestos and asphalt-asbestos tiles that went into millions of kitchens, schools, stores, and basements. Some of those tiles were as much as a quarter asbestos. Kentile sold them as an easy, do-it-yourself product, which means the dust didn't just reach professional floor layers; it reached the homeowners who scored and snapped the tiles to fit, and anyone who later sanded or ripped out an old floor. The company is gone now, but it left behind a trust, run under the name Metex, that is open and still paying today.

You don't need to remember the product names or have old records in hand. The trust accepts sworn statements, coworker accounts, and work histories to document exposure, and reconstructing that is our job, not yours. One quick note on the name: the trust is called the Metex Asbestos PI Trust, because Kentile was renamed Metex Manufacturing before the trust was set up, but it pays claims for exposure to Kentile products. If you can tell us where you encountered Kentile tile and when, we have a place to start.

What the Metex trust pays

The trust assigns each disease a set of values, with mesothelioma at the top, and a claim can be filed on the fast track for the scheduled value or, for a serious claim, through Individual Review for a higher amount on its specific facts.

An em-dash means the trust doesn't list that figure: lung cancer 2 has no fixed scheduled value (it's handled through Individual Review), the lowest levels are paid at a flat scheduled amount, and the bottom level is a token cash-discount payment. As with most trusts, mesothelioma's maximum value sits well above its scheduled value, which is why a serious claim is usually worth the closer Individual Review look.

Two things matter when you read these values. First, the trust doesn't pay the listed amount in full; it pays a percentage of it, currently 7.25%, so a mesothelioma claim at the scheduled value comes to around $9,800. Second, almost no one's exposure to Kentile tile was their only asbestos exposure. A construction site or a remodel involved many other asbestos products, from joint compound to insulation, and most of those makers left their own trusts. For most people the Kentile claim is one piece of a larger recovery built across the whole history.

How Kentile floor tile exposed workers and homeowners

Kentile didn't mine asbestos, but it put a lot of it into its floors. From the late 1940s into the 1980s, its asphalt and vinyl floor tiles were made with asbestos, some of them as much as a quarter asbestos by weight, because the fiber made the tile strong, durable, and cheap. Its vinyl sheet flooring carried an asbestos backing. For decades this was one of the most common floors in America, in homes, schools, hospitals, and stores.

The asbestos was bound into the tile, so an intact floor sitting on a slab wasn't the danger. The danger was in the work, any work that broke the tile up and sent its dust into the air. Fitting a floor meant scoring and snapping tiles to size and cutting them around edges and pipes. Old adhesive and old tile got scraped, sanded, and ground down to prep a surface. And the heaviest exposure of all came from tearing an old floor out during a remodel, breaking up the tile and pulling up the crumbling sheet-flooring backing, which released fiber freely. Sweeping up the debris afterward raised still more.

Here's what makes Kentile different from most asbestos products: it didn't only reach workers. Kentile built its business on the do-it-yourself homeowner, advertising tile that anyone could lay in a weekend, and millions did. So the people exposed weren't only the professional floor layers, tile setters, and carpenters who installed it on the job, and the factory workers who made it; they were also the homeowners who cut and laid it in their own kitchens, the handymen who pulled up old floors, and the families who breathed the dust of a weekend renovation. A Kentile claim can belong to someone who never worked a day in construction.

A Kentile claim also rarely stands alone. A floor went into a building full of other asbestos, the joint compound on the walls, the insulation in the basement, the products of many makers, and a remodel disturbed more than just the floor. We come back to that below, because it's where much of the recovery is. To understand how this work caused exposure, see asbestos floor tile and how it exposed people and flooring installers and asbestos exposure.

How the Kentile bankruptcy created the Metex trust

Kentile Floors was sued over its asbestos tile for decades, in tens of thousands of claims, and the litigation drove it into bankruptcy in 1992. The company couldn't get an asbestos trust approved that first time. It reorganized and emerged in 1998 under a new name, Metex Manufacturing Corporation, which inherited Kentile's asbestos liabilities, and for a while it kept going. But the claims kept coming, and by 2012 the weight of them sent Metex back into Chapter 11. This time, in 2014, the trust was created.

It was set up under the part of the bankruptcy law written for asbestos, Section 524(g), which lets a court channel every asbestos claim against a company, the ones already filed and the ones still to surface decades later, into a single trust that pays them in the company's place. The Metex trust was funded with a modest amount of the company's own cash and, far more importantly, with the company's rights to recover from its insurance, which is what has built the fund to its present size.

The company itself is gone. Kentile stopped operating in the 1990s, and Metex was wound down through the 2012 bankruptcy. That's worth knowing for one reason: a Kentile claim isn't a suit against a working business and doesn't threaten anyone's job. You're filing a claim against a fund, built largely from insurance money, that was set up specifically to pay it.

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

The trust pays a set amount based on your diagnosis, with mesothelioma valued at the top, and a claim can be filed on the fast track, Expedited Review, for the scheduled value, or through Individual Review, where the trust weighs the specific facts and can value the claim above the schedule. For a serious claim we look at whether Individual Review is worth pursuing.

Whichever path, the trust doesn't pay the value in full. Like every asbestos trust, it pays a percentage of it, currently 7.25%, so a finite fund can reach everyone it owes, including the people who won't be diagnosed for years. That's the same principle behind every bankruptcy: the law shares what there is across everyone harmed, instead of paying a lucky few in full and leaving the rest with nothing. The trust reviews that percentage over time and can adjust it to keep the fund solvent. We confirm the current figure when your claim is filed.

A 7.25% percentage on a $135,000 mesothelioma value works out to about $9,800, which is a real but modest payment, and it's exactly why the next part matters: a Kentile claim is almost always one piece of a larger recovery, not the whole of it.

Is the Metex asbestos trust still able to pay?

Yes, and it's in a steadier position than many older trusts. Here's the picture from its most recent annual report.

• About $100 million on hand. At the end of 2025 the trust held roughly $99.6 million in net assets. It's a substantial fund, invested and actively managed to pay claims for years to come.
• Holding its value. Unlike older trusts that draw down each year, the Metex fund actually edged up slightly in 2025, because its investment income outpaced its claim payments. That's a healthy sign.
• Paying at 7.25%. The trust pays 7.25% of each claim's value, a rate it reviews over time, and it paid out hundreds of claims in 2025.

The honest framing is the one this page keeps: the Metex trust is solvent and dependable, but it's a fund paying a modest percentage, so the claim it pays is one piece of a recovery rather than the whole of it. For someone exposed to Kentile tile, that larger recovery is almost always there to build. The trust is open and paying right now. We track the annual reporting and can walk through the full picture with you when you call.

Who qualifies for a Metex trust claim

A trust claim rests on two things: a qualifying asbestos diagnosis, and proof that you were exposed to Kentile asbestos during the period the trust covers. The diagnosis side is medical. The exposure side is where the trust's rules come in, and where most of our work happens.

The exposure has to fall before the end of 1982. The trust pays on exposure to Kentile asbestos from before December 31, 1982. The reasoning traces back to when the danger became widely known, and we lay out that full logic, along with your options if your exposure came later, in our guide to how asbestos trust claims work. Kentile tile was installed and torn out across decades, so most affected exposure falls within the window.

For mesothelioma, you don't need heavy exposure. Mesothelioma can come from brief, limited exposure, and the trust recognizes that: a meso claim asks for credible exposure to Kentile asbestos before the cutoff and doesn't have to clear the higher dose threshold that applies to the other diseases. That threshold, Significant Occupational Exposure, along with six months of Kentile exposure, applies to the lung cancers, the other cancers, and the more serious asbestosis claims, and it generally calls for about five years of asbestos work. It counts work done near the dust, not only handling it yourself.

Some flooring trades are presumed to have been exposed. The trust keeps a short list of occupations it treats as presumptively exposed to Kentile asbestos, the flooring trades where the exposure is well documented, including tile installers, layers, and grinders. If your work fits one of those, that part of the proof is presumed rather than built from scratch, which we check against your history.

You did not have to be a tradesman. Because Kentile was a do-it-yourself product, the trust's exposure rules can reach a homeowner who installed, sanded, or tore out the tile, not only the professionals. We document that the same way, through your own account and any supporting records of the home and the work.

Family members can qualify too. If a flooring worker or a do-it-yourself homeowner brought the dust home on clothes, hair, or tools, a spouse who laundered the work clothes or a child in the household can file on the exposure history, and families regularly file after a death. how take-home asbestos exposure works.

How the trust documents your exposure

The Metex trust doesn't use a customer-by-customer worksite list; it builds the proof around the work and the product. A sworn statement from you, an account from a coworker or family member who remembers the flooring work, and employment, construction, or renovation records all count. For a flooring installer, or for a homeowner who can place the Kentile tile and the work in their own home, that exposure is usually within reach to document, even decades later. Putting it together, in the form the trust requires, is our job.

How a Kentile 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 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 your diagnosis and your exposure to Kentile asbestos before the cutoff. Putting that together is our job. We gather the medical records, reconstruct the work or renovation history, document the exposure the way the trust's rules require, and decide whether to take the scheduled value or pursue Individual Review. You don't need to have kept paperwork or remember product names to start.

The Metex trust has been paying claims since 2015 and is still accepting them, so the door is open. 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.

A Kentile claim is rarely the only one

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

A floor never stood alone. The same house, school, or store that had Kentile tile had asbestos in the joint compound on its walls, the insulation in its basement and pipes, the texture on its ceilings, and more, from many manufacturers, a number of which also went bankrupt and left their own asbestos trusts. A construction job or a remodel disturbed several of those products at once, so the same work that exposed someone to Kentile tile usually exposed them to others too. The history that supports your Kentile claim often supports claims against a set of those other trusts, and because each one reviews and pays independently, the claims don't compete. They add up. how asbestos trust claims work.

This matters all the more because Kentile's per-claim values are modest. On its own, a Kentile claim is a meaningful but limited piece. Built alongside the other building-product makers' trusts, the lawsuits against companies still in business, and, for those exposed on the job, the premises claims against the site owners, it becomes part of something much larger. We walk through a full worked example, several trusts totaled across one history, in our guide to mesothelioma trust settlement values. The full set of channels beyond the trusts is laid out next.

Sources of compensation beyond the Metex trust

A Kentile claim usually sits inside a larger recovery, and the channels run in parallel without canceling one another out. Which ones apply depends on how you were exposed, and we file across all of them that fit.

• Asbestos bankruptcy trusts. Kentile is one, and as the section above explains, the other building products in the same spaces reach a whole set of other trusts. They review and pay independently, so they stack, and this is usually where most of the trust recovery is. how asbestos trust claims work.
• Lawsuits against solvent manufacturers. Several makers of asbestos flooring, joint compound, and other building products are still in business and can be sued directly for making and 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. For someone exposed on the job, the building owners and general contractors who controlled the worksites can be held responsible for the asbestos conditions they allowed, separate from the product makers. how premises liability claims work.
• Federal and disability benefits. Depending on the work, these can include Social Security disability for anyone whose illness stops them from working, VA disability for those who also served in the military, and other federal benefits, all paid in addition to the trust and lawsuit recovery. how asbestos disability and benefit claims work.

Your Metex 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. Kentile's asbestos liability was resolved 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 manufacturers still in business and the premises owners where you worked. Those defendants raise the same handful of arguments they raise in most asbestos cases, plus one specific to floor tile, 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.