Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues at the Perrin conference, as well as share a preview of KCIC’s 2025 asbestos filing trends. I spoke on the National Trends in Asbestos Litigation panel, alongside David Breslau (Resolute Management, Inc.), Sam Iola (Iola Gross & Forbes-King), and Lee Ziffer (Gay Jones & Kuhn PLLC). During the panel, we discussed filing trends (including disease, jurisdiction and plaintiff firms), hot and emerging jurisdictions, recent verdicts, the future of the litigation, and case risks. With many eagerly awaiting KCIC’s 2025 asbestos report, I wanted to share an advanced preview and highlight some filing trends we are observing.  

Data Overview

As part of our services at KCIC, we provide claims administration to defendants in asbestos litigation. Through this, we estimate we review and process 90%+ of asbestos-related complaints in the tort system. We use the publicly available data from these complaints to prepare our analyses. In forming our observations, we reviewed all filings received as of January 31, 2026. As we have seen previously, filings will continue to be received after this time. 

Filings Increased in 2025

In 2025, we observed 4,244 total filings. This is nearly a 6% increase in comparison to the filings received in 2024. As we continue to review historical filings, this is the first time in recent years that the five-year lookback shows an overall upward trend.  

Although the overall trend of asbestos litigation filings from our data sets at KCIC, as well as the long-standing trends of filings demonstrate a decrease, the 2025 increase is significant. It shows filings reaching levels not observed since 2017.   

Filings by Disease

Mesothelioma and lung cancer filings continue to be the main drivers of the litigation, representing approximately 50% and 40% of the filings respectively. While the remaining disease categories we track also experienced increases, none comprise nearly as large of a nominal share as do these two categories.  

In review of the filings data, there seem to be several significant insights:

(1) It seems that any decrease observed in filings from 2020 through 2024 could be explained as a result of COVID and we are on the other side of that as of 2025. 

(2) Within the data we track, we have noted that complaints indicating talc exposure are increasing drastically.  About 40% of all mesothelioma filings in 2025 allege talc exposure in the complaint.  That is up from only 36% in 2024 or 16% in 2019.  

(3) Furthermore, based on our review of diagnosis information reported through the National Cancer Institute’s SEER Program and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, both mesothelioma and lung cancer diagnoses are decreasing, leading to the conclusion that we are observing an increased propensity to sue.  

We plan to share more in-depth analyses in our annual asbestos report, which will be published later this spring. If you would like to be notified of when our 2025 report is available, subscribe to our insights.