AnnieMac Home Mortgage is the latest lender to settle a data breach lawsuit, agreeing to a $2 million deal with impacted consumers.

Plaintiffs in a federal class action complaint filed a motion for preliminary approval of a settlement this week, ending litigation over a 2024 hack at the company. The agreement covers 171,074 class members, current and former customers, and attorneys anticipate pro rata cash payments around $75 per claimant. 

In reaching the deal, AnnieMac denies any culpability and disputes the accusations that customers' personally identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, were compromised. A federal judge will weigh whether to OK the deal in September, in a hearing at a Trenton, New Jersey, courthouse.

It's the fourth deal by an industry participant in the past several weeks to wrap up litigation for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty that typically follows a firm's admission of a breach. 

Vendor SitusAMC in June agreed to a $5.3 million settlement for over 600,000 class members, following a November hack, while defunct lender McLean Mortgage last week agreed to pay over 30,000 class members on a per-claim basis over a 2024 incident. NJ Lenders Corp. in July also agreed to a small deal for 30,000 potentially affected customers in a breach last August. 

Filings related to the AnnieMac settlement this week did not describe additional details regarding the data breach in which an unauthorized user accessed the lender's systems between Aug. 21 and Aug. 23, 2024. The first data breach lawsuit emerged that November, and 11 separate complaints were consolidated earlier last year. 

AnnieMac CEO Joe Panebianco declined to comment on pending litigation Friday, while the interim lead counsel for plaintiffs, James E. Cecchi of New Jersey-based Carella Byrne Cecchi Brody Agnello, P.C., didn't respond to requests for comment. 

"The settlement is well within the range of other data breach settlements in the relief that it provides," wrote Cecchi in a filing Monday. 

How the settlement will be paid out

From the $2 million settlement, class members can receive up to $5,000 for unreimbursed economic losses, with documentation, such as identity theft traceable to the incident. Claimants don't have to provide documentation for the pro rata cash payment, which the amount will depend on the number of claims received. 

The fund will also pay up to $666,666 in attorney's fees, or a third of the settlement amount, according to the filings. Ten class representatives, the named plaintiffs in the case, will each receive awards of $5,000.

All class members are also eligible to receive two years of complimentary credit monitoring services. AnnieMac implemented additional data security measures out of its own expenses, although it will describe them in a confidential filing, the filings said. 

More deals, more lawsuits

Bayview Asset Management finalized legacy litigation this month in receiving definitive approval for a $26 million settlement for over 5 million consumers affected in a wide-ranging attack in late 2021. Consumers suing former lender Academy Mortgage over a 2024 attack also told a federal court this month that they've reached a deal. 

Meanwhile three lenders are facing new class action fights this year after their admissions of data breaches. They include Optimum First Mortgage, Plaza Home Mortgage and the ailing Impac Holdings. While another consumer sued Finance of America in March over a purported hack, the company has not publicly disclosed an incident.