T H Agriculture & Nutrition (THAN) Asbestos Trust Claims

If you or someone in your family worked around raw asbestos fiber, or with the building and consumer products made from it, and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, the company known as THAN may be part of the story, and there's a large trust set up to pay these claims.

You may never have heard of T H Agriculture & Nutrition, and that's the point. THAN didn't make a product you'd recognize on a shelf. For about twenty years it was one of the country's distributors of raw chrysotile asbestos, the loose fiber itself, which it bought from a Canadian mine and sold to manufacturers who mixed it into their own products, including the maker of Bondex joint compound. The people exposed were its own warehouse workers who bagged and shipped the fiber, the plant workers who opened those bags and mixed the fiber into products, and the tradesmen and homeowners who later sanded and cut what those plants made. The lawsuits drove THAN into bankruptcy, and the reorganization set aside a trust funded with $900 million. That trust is open, well funded, and paying.

You don't need to have known THAN's name, and you don't need old records. The trust pays on documented exposure to the asbestos THAN distributed, before the cutoff date, and reconstructing that from your work history, including the products and plants its fiber reached, is our job, not yours.

What the THAN trust pays by disease

Mesothelioma sits at the top of the THAN schedule (Level VIII): a scheduled value of $150,000, and up to $900,000 through the trust's evidence-based Individual Review track. Because that gap is so wide, we always do a thorough exposure-history investigation to determine whether filing Individual Review is warranted. These are the trust's set values before its payment percentage is applied, and as explained below the underlying values here are high, so even at the trust's percentage a mesothelioma claim can carry real weight.

Lung cancer is split into two levels by exposure and smoking history, and lung cancer 2 (Level VI) is paid only through Individual Review, so it carries no scheduled value. The lowest level pays a fixed amount with no separate average or maximum.

A trust's schedule shows what one trust assigns to a diagnosis, not what a whole case is worth. Almost everyone exposed to THAN's fiber was also exposed to the products its customers made from it, and to other companies' asbestos besides, which usually means other trusts and often lawsuits on top of this one. We explain below why a THAN claim is rarely the only one.

How THAN's asbestos exposed workers

THAN is different from most companies with an asbestos trust, because it didn't manufacture asbestos products. It supplied the raw material. Starting in 1960, the chemical distributor then still known by its earlier name partnered with a Canadian mine and became a major distributor of raw chrysotile asbestos fiber, buying the loose fiber and reselling it to manufacturers across the country for about two decades, until it left the asbestos business around 1980.

That supplier role is exactly why its fiber reached so many people, in three layers:

• THAN's own handling of the raw fiber. Workers in THAN's warehouses and distribution facilities bagged, unbagged, loaded, stored, and shipped the loose chrysotile. Handling raw fiber is among the dustiest, most direct asbestos exposures there is.
• The plants THAN supplied. The manufacturers that bought the fiber, including the maker of Bondex joint compound, opened the bags and mixed the dry fiber into their products. The workers who did that mixing breathed it heavily.
• The products made from it. Once the fiber was in a finished product, the tradesmen and homeowners who cut, sanded, and tore out that product, joint compound being a classic example, released it all over again, often years later.

On top of the raw fiber, THAN also distributed other materials, including vermiculite and talc, that could be cross-contaminated with asbestos as they moved through its facilities. And as with every asbestos exposure, the dust didn't stay at work. It came home on clothes and hair to the families who laundered them.

Because the fiber traveled into so many products and plants, the exposure reached a wide range of workers: warehouse and distribution workers, the plant and factory workers at the manufacturers THAN supplied, and the construction tradesmen and do-it-yourselfers who handled the finished asbestos products downstream. The air-measurement figures for handling raw fiber and for the specific products it became live on the product pages those figures belong to.

How the THAN bankruptcy created the asbestos trust

THAN's history goes back to a chemical company incorporated in 1917 and later known as Thompson-Hayward Chemical Company. In 1960 it went into the raw-asbestos business, distributing chrysotile fiber from a Canadian mine, and in 1961 it was bought by the American arm of the global electronics company Philips, becoming T H Agriculture & Nutrition. It kept distributing asbestos under that ownership until about 1980, and sold off its operating assets the next year. The asbestos was gone, but the lawsuits, eventually numbering in the hundreds of thousands of claims, were not, and in November 2008 THAN filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a prepackaged plan, a reorganization worked out in advance to move quickly.

Asbestos bankruptcies are resolved through a part of the law written for exactly this problem, Section 524(g) of the Bankruptcy Code. It lets a court set up a trust to take over a company's asbestos liability, then issue a channeling injunction, a court order routing every asbestos claim, the ones already filed and the ones not yet brought, into the trust instead of the company. THAN's plan was confirmed in 2009, and the trust took effect that November, funded with $900 million drawn from the company's corporate parent and its insurance coverage. A trust of that size, overseen by a former federal judge as its trustee, is a well-resourced one, and it stands on its own under court supervision. The claims here concern the raw asbestos THAN distributed decades ago, and they're paid by the trust.

What the THAN trust 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 trust's 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 the scheduled and maximum values is very large here, which is why we always do a thorough exposure-history investigation to determine whether filing Individual Review is warranted.

Whichever track you file, the trust doesn't pay the full value of a claim. It pays a percentage of it, currently 16.3%, which the trust raised from 15% on September 1, 2026, with supplemental payments to claimants already paid at 15%.

That percentage exists for a sound reason. Every asbestos trust has to make its funds 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 rather than draining the fund on the claims that come first. What's worth knowing about THAN is that its underlying values are unusually high, so the percentage starts from a larger number than it would at most trusts. A mesothelioma claim paid at the scheduled value works out to about $24,450, and Individual Review can carry it well higher, up toward $146,700 at the maximum. That's also why the case is rarely filed alone. We work from whatever the trust is paying when your claim is filed, and confirm it against the trust's current notice.

Is the THAN trust still able to pay?

Yes, and it's in strong shape. It's a large, well-funded trust that has already paid out most of its original funding and still holds a substantial reserve. Here's the picture from its most recent annual report.

• About $240 million on hand. At the end of 2025 the trust held roughly $240 million in net assets, most of it invested, and that balance actually rose over the year.
• More than $830 million paid to date. Since it opened, the trust has paid more than $830 million to asbestos claimants, most of its original $900 million in funding, while investment returns have kept a large reserve in place.
• It's paying at a measured pace. Annual payouts in recent years have been modest relative to the reserve, which is how the trust keeps money available for the claims still to come.

No trust's money is unlimited, and the payment percentage is how any trust keeps its promise to the people who haven't been diagnosed yet. But the THAN trust is open, well 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 THAN trust claim

A claim rests on two things: a qualifying asbestos diagnosis, and documented exposure to the asbestos THAN distributed 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, because connecting a worker to a supplier's fiber takes some reconstruction.

The exposure has to fall before the end of 1986. The trust pays on exposure before December 31, 1986, which covers the years THAN distributed the fiber and the period afterward when products made from it were still being cut and torn out. Most careers around raw fiber, the plants it supplied, or the products it became ran through that window.

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 THAN exposure plus Significant Occupational Exposure, roughly five years of asbestos work (with at least two of them before the end of 1986) that can add up across different jobs, including time spent working in close proximity to others doing the dusty work.

The exposure can be to the raw fiber or to what was made from it. Because THAN's reach was the raw material, the trust's definition of its asbestos is broad: the loose chrysotile fiber itself, the products manufacturers made from it, and other materials like vermiculite and talc that moved through THAN's facilities and could carry asbestos. What the claim needs is credible evidence connecting you to that asbestos, by your account, a coworker's, or a family member's, supported by whatever records exist, such as having worked at a plant THAN supplied or with the products it fed. People rarely tracked which distributor's fiber was in a product they used decades ago, and the claim doesn't depend on your having done so. Making that connection is our job.

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.

How a THAN 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 in turn. What the claim needs is proof of two things, your diagnosis and your exposure to the asbestos THAN distributed before the cutoff, and putting that together is our work, not yours. For a supplier like THAN, that means reconstructing the chain, the raw fiber, the plants it supplied, and the products it became, and tying it to where you worked.

The trust is open and still accepting claims. 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.

A THAN claim is rarely the only one

For an exposure history that runs through THAN, this is the part that changes the math, because the fiber it supplied almost never acted alone.

A worker exposed to THAN's chrysotile was, by the nature of the thing, exposed to the products its customers made from it, and usually to other companies' asbestos besides, on the same jobs and across a career.

One connection is worth calling out. THAN supplied the raw chrysotile fiber that the maker of Bondex joint compound mixed into its product, so a Bondex claim and a THAN claim often rest on the very same joint compound. If you have a Bondex claim, or could make one, you may well have a THAN claim too, through that same product: the finished compound came from Bondex, but the fiber in it came through THAN, and each left its own trust. A drywall finisher who sanded that joint compound, or a plant worker who mixed it, can often reach both, plus the makers of the other asbestos products on the same sites, several of which left trusts of their own, plus those still in business who can be sued directly.

That's why the thorough exposure investigation is worth so much. A work history that turns up several 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 THAN trust

A THAN 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 THAN trust is one, and because its fiber went into so many companies' products, an exposure history almost always reaches several others, including the makers of the very products THAN supplied. 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 plants and worksites that controlled the conditions where the fiber was handled or the products were used can be held responsible, separate from the companies that made or supplied the asbestos. How premises liability claims work.
• Federal and disability benefits. Social Security disability is available to anyone whose illness stops them from working, and where the work touched a shipyard or military setting, it can add Longshore benefits (LHWCA, the federal program for maritime and harbor workers) or VA disability benefits. These are paid on top of the trust and lawsuit recovery. How asbestos disability and benefit claims work.

Your THAN 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.