CBiz $485,000 Data Breach Class Action Settlement

Data Breach · Claims Open

Current Status

Claims are open. Claim Forms must be submitted online by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on December 24, 2026, or mailed with a postmark no later than that date. The court has granted preliminary approval, and the final approval hearing is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on January 13, 2027; no payment date had been announced as of October 6, 2026. If CBIZ mailed you a postcard notice with a LoginID and PIN, the action to take now is to file a Claim Form. Class members who do nothing receive no payment and still give up their claims.

What Changed Recently?

CBIZ Benefits & Insurance Services, Inc. agreed to pay $485,000 to settle In re CBIZ Data Breach Litigation, No. 1:24-cv-01722-DCN, a consolidated class action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio before Judge Donald C. Nugent. The settlement agreement was signed in late August 2026, the court granted preliminary approval, and notice went out to the class, which opened the claim period.

The case grew out of a 2024 incident that CBIZ described in its notice letters: an unauthorized party exploited a vulnerability in one of CBIZ’s web pages and acquired information from certain databases between June 2 and June 21, 2024, including names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth. The plaintiffs allege CBIZ failed to use reasonable security, and that the stolen data was later posted on a criminal group’s dark-web leak site. CBIZ denies any wrongdoing, and the settlement is not an admission of liability. The settlement agreement says CBIZ has since fixed the vulnerability and added security measures.

Who Qualifies?

The Settlement Class is everyone CBIZ sent a notice saying their private information may have been compromised in the 2024 data incident. That is roughly 19,990 people. CBIZ handles benefits and insurance services for other companies, so most class members are current or former employees of CBIZ’s clients rather than CBIZ’s own staff. Membership is checked against the administrator’s mailing list, so the notice is what decides eligibility.

Excluded are people who validly opt out, the judge and court staff assigned to the case, CBIZ’s officers and directors, and anyone found guilty of causing or helping cause the incident.

How Much Can You Get?

The settlement offers two benefits, and a class member can claim both:

• Pro rata cash payment. Every class member can claim an equal share of what is left in the fund after other costs. The parties estimate about $100 if 10% of the class files valid claims, and roughly $200 if 5% files. The amount moves up or down with the number of claims, so these are estimates, not fixed amounts. No losses or receipts are needed for this payment.
• Documented out-of-pocket losses, up to $5,000. This covers losses fairly traceable to the incident and incurred in or after 2024: unreimbursed fraud or identity theft losses; professional fees such as attorneys’, accountants’ and credit repair fees; credit freeze and unfreeze costs; credit monitoring bought on or after the incident; and smaller costs such as notary, fax, postage, copying, mileage and long-distance phone charges.

The $485,000 fund is non-reversionary and covers everything. Before claims are paid it covers administration, attorneys’ fees of up to one-third of the fund ($161,666.67) plus up to $20,000 in costs, and service awards of up to $5,000 for each of the three class representatives, all subject to court approval. Documented-loss claims are paid first from what remains, and together they cannot use more than 50% of the net fund; if they would, each loss payment is reduced proportionally. The cash payments are then divided from the rest. The settlement does not include a credit monitoring benefit.