C.E. Thurston Asbestos Trust Claims

If you or someone in your family worked at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, at Newport News, or at plants up and down the East Coast where insulation was installed or torn out, and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, C.E. Thurston & Sons may be part of your story. Thurston was a Norfolk, Virginia insulation contractor. Its crews installed, repaired, and removed asbestos insulation made by other companies, and it sold those products too.

Thurston went through bankruptcy and left a bankruptcy trust to pay asbestos claims. The trust pays 50% of a claim's scheduled value, so a mesothelioma claim that qualifies brings $12,500. That's real money, but it is often one part of a larger case. The same shipyard and plant work often involved other companies' asbestos too.

You don't need old records or the name of the insulation contractor on your job. Working that out is our job.

Who C.E. Thurston & Sons was, and who was exposed

According to the trust's own history of the company, C.E. Thurston, Sr. started the business in 1919, representing several mechanical packing makers in southeastern Virginia. The business soon added insulation and refractory contracting. It incorporated in 1949 as C.E. Thurston & Sons, Inc. and worked from Norfolk as a commercial, industrial, and marine contractor.

Thurston handled materials for hot and cold work. Its business included selling, installing, maintaining, repairing, removing, and handling asbestos insulation made by other companies, and distributing those products. It never made insulation itself or mined asbestos. The trust's history says Thurston's asbestos sales and services dropped as the dangers became known and stopped in the late 1970s.

By 2006, Thurston was licensed in 13 states, mostly along the eastern seaboard. Traditionally, much of its business came from shipbuilding and ship fitting, including work for the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock.

That work put asbestos dust in the air for many trades:

• Insulators who cut, fitted, and tore out pipe and boiler insulation. See insulators, pipe insulation, and thermal system insulation.
• Shipyard workers in every trade who worked in the same engine rooms, boiler rooms, and compartments. See shipyards and maritime work and shipyard exposure.
• Navy sailors aboard ships being built or overhauled. See Navy exposure.
• Pipefitters, boilermakers, and refractory workers in power plants and industrial plants. See pipefitters and plumbers, boilermakers, and refractory materials.
• Bystanders who did not handle insulation but worked near those who did. See bystander and proximity workers.

The Thurston bankruptcy and the trust

C.E. Thurston & Sons, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 18, 2003, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Case No. 03-75932). The court confirmed its reorganization plan in 2006. The plan took effect March 31, 2006, and created the C.E. Thurston & Sons Asbestos Trust to pay present and future asbestos claims against Thurston.

The trust began accepting claims on November 16, 2006, its Initial Claims Filing Date. A claims processing company runs the claims system and posts the trust's documents.

What the C.E. Thurston trust pays

The trust's Trust Distribution Procedures set five disease levels, each with a scheduled value and most with a maximum value.

Source: C.E. Thurston & Sons, Inc. Asbestos Related Claims and Demands Trust Distribution Procedures, Revision 1b (February 26, 2009), §7.3(a)(3) and §7.3(a)(4), as posted with the trust's documents. The right-hand column is our arithmetic: scheduled value times the 50% payment percentage. Because there is no individual review, a claim is valued above the scheduled value only through arbitration or a lawsuit, as the trust's procedures allow.

"Other cancer" means colorectal, laryngeal, esophageal, pharyngeal, or stomach cancer, along with signs of asbestos disease on both sides of the chest, such as lung scarring or pleural plaques.

The payment percentage

The trust pays a share of each claim's value, called the payment percentage, so there is money left for people diagnosed in the future. Thurston's rate has moved up and down:

• 40% until the end of 2010
• 80% from January 1, 2011
• 25% from May 10, 2012, when the trust resumed making offers
• 35% from September 29, 2015
• 50% from November 21, 2017

When the rate went to 50%, the trust adopted a December 1, 2017 policy for one-time supplemental payments to people who had been paid at a lower rate. The trust's website does not post the current rate. Its 2025 annual report, filed April 30, 2026, states that the 50% rate stayed in place through 2025. We found no later change, so 50% is the rate as of that report. Our C.E. Thurston trust notices page holds the 2012 notice.

The trust's finances

The trust has shrunk steadily. Its net claimants' equity fell from about $50.0 million at the end of 2010 to about $16.6 million at the end of 2025. In 2025 it received 335 claims, paid 409, and paid out about $1.21 million. Each year's details are in the C.E. Thurston trust's annual reports, with our plain-English summaries.

How a C.E. Thurston claim works

Every claim goes through Expedited Review. The trust checks the claim against fixed medical and exposure criteria. If it meets them, the trust offers the scheduled value times the payment percentage. The procedures say plainly that there is no individual review process for any disease level. A claimant who disputes the result can use the trust's arbitration procedures. See Expedited Review.

Exposure has to come before 1982. The trust defines exposure as meaningful and credible exposure to asbestos products that Thurston installed, sold, supplied, distributed, marketed, or removed.

• Mesothelioma: the diagnosis plus credible exposure to Thurston asbestos. No minimum time.
• All other levels: six months of occupational exposure to Thurston asbestos before 1982, plus "Significant Occupational Exposure." That means at least five years of asbestos work, with at least two before 1982, either handling asbestos products or working regularly near people who did. See occupational exposure.

Sites matter. The trust keeps an Approved Site List of the work sites it accepts, with a procedure for adding a site. It also has forms for limited-exposure sites and for bystander exposure. For shipyards, the trust's rule is specific. A shipyard counts as your site only if you worked at the yard or on ships while they were built or overhauled there. If you only served aboard a ship afterward, you list the ship by name, and details like hull number and overhaul dates help.

Proof can be ordinary evidence. The trust accepts the claimant's affidavit, a coworker's affidavit, or (for a deceased worker) a family member's affidavit, plus invoices, employment, construction, or similar records.

Filing deadlines. Under the procedures, the statute of limitations runs from the date of diagnosis, unless a wrongful-death law says otherwise, and the trust adds a 60-day grace period. A claim gets the longer of three years or the period the governing law allows. Since 2013, the trust has looked to the law of your state of residence or the state where you were exposed, and it uses whichever of those, or the three-year period, is most favorable to you. Lawsuits and wrongful-death claims have their own deadlines, some of them short.

Why a Thurston claim is one part of a larger case

Thurston was a contractor and distributor. The insulation its crews put on pipes and boilers was made by other companies. Many of those makers also went bankrupt and left their own trusts, and the same exposure that supports a Thurston claim may support claims against them. Shipyard and plant work also involved gaskets, packing, cement, and other asbestos materials from still more companies. Some can still be sued.

Each trust reviews claims under its own rules, and each one that pays does so separately. A $12,500 Thurston payment for mesothelioma matters, but it often sits alongside other claims.

That's why we start with your whole work history. For more, see our guide to how asbestos trust claims work and our page on mesothelioma lawsuits.