Kansas City Life Accuses Ex-Employee of Burning, Stashing Policies at Home

Kansas City Life Insurance Co. has filed a suit that focuses attention on a potential data security threat: administrative assistants who work from home.

The company alleges that a woman who previously worked as an assistant for life insurance general agents, or distributors, accumulated about 200 life insurance policies and policy correspondence files in her home in Monmouth County, New Jersey, while working from home, from late 2022 through October 2023.

After she was terminated, in 2023, she mailed about 50 of the files to the policyholders, as she was instructed, but she burned about 100 files and kept 50 others, according to a complaint the company filed against the former administrative assistant, Melissa Halbach, earlier this month in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey.

“Defendant has further reported that the policies remaining in her possession are not stored in a secured or locked way, but are sitting in a room in her home that is accessible to family and visitors,” Kansas City Life says.

The policy files include Social Security numbers and medical histories along with names, addresses and telephone numbers.

“Defendant has repeatedly refused to return the materials or make them available to Plaintiff, instead making vague and threatening statements to Plaintiff in an apparent attempt to leverage this confidential information to bargain for Plaintiff’s assistance in obtaining financial compensation for Defendant from her prior general agent employer,” according to Kansas City Life.

Kansas City Life has accused Halbach of conversion, negligence, intentional destruction of property and interference with a contractual relationship.

It has requested, and received, an injunction, forbidding Halbach from sharing the files with others and requiring her to send the files to Kansas City Life or an appropriate receiver.

Halbach could not immediately be reached for comment.

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