Hess has taken a coverage fight to federal court, saying National Interstate ignored its demand to cover two cancer lawsuits.
The energy company filed suit against National Interstate Insurance Company and National Interstate Insurance Company of Hawaii in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey on September 9, 2026, according to the complaint. Hess says it is an additional insured under commercial general liability policies the two insurers issued to Island Transportation Company, a fuel hauler - and that the carriers must therefore defend it and cover any payout in two underlying cases.
Those cases are personal injury suits. In one, filed in New Jersey state court in August 2022, a worker employed by Island Transportation and his wife sued Hess and other companies. In the other, filed in New York in February 2024, a second Island Transportation worker and his wife did the same. Both men allege they contracted multiple myeloma - a blood cancer - from exposure to benzene in the fuels they loaded, transported, and unloaded on the job, including gasoline supplied by Hess, the complaint states.
Hess says the policies, which ran from September 30, 2009 to April 1, 2015, carried a blanket endorsement extending additional-insured status "when required in a written contract." A string of transportation and terminal-access agreements between Hess and the hauler did exactly that, Hess says, and those windows lined up with when the underlying plaintiffs say they were exposed.
Hess says it tendered the two claims - formally asking the insurers to take over its defense - on June 9, 2026, sending the underlying complaints, deposition testimony, its agreements with Island Transportation, and certificates of insurance naming it as an additional insured. It gave the insurers until June 19, 2026 to confirm coverage. Nearly twelve weeks later, according to the filing, they still had not answered, had paid nothing toward Hess's defense, and had offered no coverage.
The complaint runs to eight counts across the two underlying suits. Hess wants the court to declare that the insurers owe it both a defense and coverage for any payout, and it accuses them of breaking the policy contract and failing to deal with its claim in good faith. Hess says both the coverage at stake and the defense bills it has already run up top $75,000 by a wide margin, and it wants damages, interest, and legal costs on top. Hess denies the underlying claims and says any liability would trace to Island Transportation's alleged failure to properly train and warn its workers.
The allegations are untested, and no court has ruled on the claims.
