Online Insurance Broker Faces Privacy Class Action

News April 15, 2024 at 02:01 PM
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Lemonade has joined a long list of companies facing lawsuits over how their websites have shared visitor data with other companies.

Plaintiffs have filed a complaint accusing the New York-based insurance broker of sending life insurance applicant information to Meta's Facebook site, Snap's Snapchat site, TikTok and other parties without the applicants' consent.

"By allowing this third-party access, Lemonade violated users' right to privacy, as enshrined by statute and common law," according to the complaint, which was filed April 3 in a state court in Nassau County, New York.

Yitzchak Kopel of Bursor & Fisher, the attorney who filed the suit, is seeking permission to represent a class that would consist of all people who applied for a quote for term life insurance from Lemonade's website from March 15, 2021, through Sept. 28, 2023.

The lead plaintiffs are Sean La Febre, a San Francisco resident; Jeffrey Parker, a Philadelphia resident; and Kendall Greeven, of Vista, California.

The plaintiffs have accused Lemonade of violating New York state's general business law, the California Invasion of Privacy Act and the Pennsylvania Wiretapping Act.

The plaintiffs are asking for a jury trial and damages to be determined by the court.

Representatives for the plaintiffs and Lemonade did not respond to requests for comment.

The backdrop: Lawyers have organized thousands of class-action suits over companies' use of websites in recent years.

Suits against companies of all kinds, including many complaints filed this week against the parent of Google, focus on concerns that website managers sent user data to web traffic tracking services, advertisers or other services in violation of state or federal privacy laws or other laws.

Bethany Lukitsch, a partner at BakerHostetler, reported at a recent Food & Drug Law Institute event that plaintiffs have filed at least 100 suits based just on how the California Invasion of Privacy Act applies to website chat features.

Many suits against life and annuity issuers raise questions about whether the site owners collected users' health information and whether they provided adequate notice and safeguards when connecting their sites with traffic tracking service providers or insurance underwriting service providers.

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