Kaiser Gypsum Asbestos Trust Claims

If you or someone in your family hung or finished drywall, sprayed texture on walls and ceilings, or worked around those trades in new homes and buildings, and later developed mesothelioma or another asbestos disease, the Kaiser Gypsum name may come up in your case. Kaiser Gypsum made asbestos joint compound and texture paint from the 1950s into the 1970s, at plants mostly in the western United States.

Kaiser Gypsum went through bankruptcy and set up a bankruptcy trust. But its trust works differently from almost every other asbestos trust. Kaiser Gypsum had insurance, so most claims are still brought as lawsuits. The insurer defends and pays them, and the trust pays only the part the insurance didn't cover, the deductible, at 62% of its value. For most people, the lawsuit is where the money is.

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

What Kaiser Gypsum made, and who used it

Kaiser Gypsum Company was a maker of gypsum wallboard products, with its main office in Oakland and later Walnut Creek, California. In sworn answers it gave in 1992, it listed more than twenty asbestos-containing products. Among them were:

• Joint, finishing and topping compounds, in powder and premixed form, used to tape and finish drywall seams
• Texture paints: Cover-Tex, Spray-Tex, Spray Cover-Tex and Kaiser-Tex, sprayed or rolled onto walls and ceilings
• Wallboard laminating compound, compounds for electric radiant-heat ceilings, and exterior wallboard compounds
• Mineral fiber ceiling board and tile

The company said the asbestos was chrysotile, at roughly 6.5% to 16% in its joint compounds depending on the year and plant. It made these products at plants in Redwood City, Antioch, Long Beach and Santa Ana, California; Seattle, Washington; St. Helens, Oregon; Jacksonville, Florida; and Delanco, New Jersey. A 1990 federal notice gives its years of making asbestos products as 1952 through 1976, and the company said it took asbestos out of its joint compound in 1975. You can read more in our history of Kaiser Gypsum Company.

Mixing powdered joint compound, and especially sanding the dried compound, filled the air with dust. Workers in the room breathed it whether or not they did the sanding. The people most likely to have been exposed include:

• Drywall hangers and tapers, plasterers and painters. See drywall finishers, plasterers and painters.
• Carpenters, electricians and other building trades working nearby. See carpenters and construction workers.
• Homeowners and family members in houses being built or remodeled.

See our page on asbestos joint compound.

The Kaiser Gypsum bankruptcy and the trust

Since 1978, Kaiser Gypsum had been named in more than 38,000 asbestos lawsuits, and about 14,000 were pending when it filed. Kaiser Gypsum Company and its related company Hanson Permanente Cement filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 30, 2016, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina (Case No. 16-31602). Both are part of the Lehigh Hanson group, owned by the German cement company HeidelbergCement.

Unlike most asbestos debtors, Kaiser Gypsum had insurance to pay its asbestos claims. Its main insurer, Truck Insurance Exchange, had covered it from 1965 through 1983, typically paying up to $500,000 a claim after a deductible. The plan was built around that insurance. The bankruptcy court recommended confirming the plan in September 2020, the federal district court confirmed it on July 28, 2021, and it took effect on August 12, 2021. The plan set up the Kaiser Gypsum Asbestos Personal Injury Trust, a Section 524(g) trust, funded with about $49 million from Lehigh Hanson, a $1 million note, and rights to insurance money.

Truck objected to the plan. In June 2024, in Truck Insurance Exchange v. Kaiser Gypsum Co., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8–0 that an insurer that has to pay claims in a bankruptcy is a "party in interest" with the right to object to the plan and be heard. The Court sent the case back without deciding whether the plan itself was valid. On April 29, 2025, the federal appeals court in Richmond ruled on Truck's objections and upheld the plan.

How a Kaiser Gypsum claim works

The trust's Trust Distribution Procedures split claims into two kinds, based on when the person was first exposed to a Kaiser Gypsum or Hanson Permanente Cement product.

Insured claims (first exposure before April 1, 1985, generally). These are nearly all of the claims. The claimant files a lawsuit, in a state or federal court where the company could have been sued, against the reorganized Kaiser Gypsum or Hanson Permanente Cement "in name only." The insurer defends the case and pays any settlement or judgment, up to the policy limits. Then the claimant files with the trust for the deductible, the part the insurance didn't pay. For claims settled or paid by the main insurer, Truck Insurance Exchange, the deductibles are:

Source: Kaiser Gypsum Asbestos Personal Injury Trust Distribution Procedures, §5.3 and §5.4(d); Resolution for Adjusted Payment Percentage (May 19, 2026). The right-hand column is our arithmetic: deductible times 62.0%.

Claims first exposed after March 1983, or paid by other insurers, are handled under those policies' terms, and the trust may also owe amounts it received from settling insurers. Anyone first exposed on or before December 31, 1975 falls in the first row. For them, the lawsuit is the main recovery and the trust payment is a small addition.

Uninsured claims (first exposure after the insurance ended). These go straight to the trust, which values each one against what Kaiser Gypsum paid to settle similar cases before bankruptcy, looking at the person's disease, age, family, losses and exposure. Uninsured claims where Kaiser Gypsum caused at least 75% of the person's exposure, or where the exposure came mainly from working in a Kaiser Gypsum plant, and where little recovery is likely elsewhere, can ask for review as "Extraordinary Claims." The trust reported that no uninsured claim had been filed through 2025.

Exposure proof. The trust accepts a sworn statement from the claimant, a coworker or (if the worker has died) a family member. It also accepts invoices, employment or construction records, or other credible evidence. For an insured claim, the claimant also sends proof that the lawsuit was resolved and what the insurer paid. The claim forms ask which Kaiser Gypsum or Hanson products the person was exposed to.

Family members can file. The uninsured claim form covers people exposed through a family member's work, such as dust brought home on clothes. See take-home exposure.

Disputes and order. A claimant who disagrees with the trust can take the claim to binding or non-binding arbitration, and after non-binding arbitration can sue the trust. Claims are handled in the order filed, using a first-in, first-out queue. Verus Claims Services processes the claims.

Filing deadlines. The lawsuit is governed by the usual state or federal statute of limitations. The trust claim for the deductible must be filed within three years after the insurer pays or the case settles. Wrongful-death and state deadlines can be short, so call soon.

What the Kaiser Gypsum trust pays

The payment percentage, and how it has risen

A trust pays a set share of each claim's value so it can keep paying people diagnosed years from now. The Kaiser Gypsum trust started at 55.2% in March 2023. On May 19, 2026, after a review of its finances, the trustee raised it to 62.0%, with supplemental payments to people paid earlier at the lower rate. It is a high percentage, but for insured claims it applies only to the deductible, not to the full value of the claim.

The trust's finances

The trust had about $63.7 million in net claimants' equity at the end of 2025, up from about $50 million at the end of 2021. It has paid relatively little so far, because most of the money in each case comes from the insurer. The trust reported that, through 2025, 783 insured claims had entered its queue and 158 had been paid. The trust paid out about $174,000 in cash in 2025. Year-by-year detail is in the Kaiser Gypsum trust's annual reports, each with our plain-English summary, and its notices are here.

Why Kaiser Gypsum is one piece of a bigger case

A Kaiser Gypsum claim can be worth more than most trust claims, because the insurer pays the lawsuit. But drywall and plastering work almost never involved one company's products. Over a career, tapers and painters used joint compound and texture from many makers. Some of those companies, such as U.S. Gypsum and National Gypsum, have trusts; others can still be sued. The same diagnosis and work history may support claims against all of them, 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.