Kelly Benefits, a Maryland company that administers employee benefits for employers and insurers, has agreed to put $5 million into a fund for people whose personal data was taken in a December 2024 hack. The settlement lists a cash payment of approximately $50 for each person who files a claim, and online claims close on December 28, 2026. A federal judge has not yet signed off. Reports put the number of people caught in the breach at 553,660, which is far more than a $5 million fund can pay $50 each, so the final check could end up smaller.
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Who is in the Kelly Benefits settlement class
The class covers everyone living in the United States whose private information was compromised in the Kelly Benefits breach between December 12 and December 17, 2024. Most of those people never did business with Kelly Benefits directly. The company handles benefits for employers and insurance carriers, so the data belonged to workers and plan members of its clients. Joseph D. Cunningham, the company’s director of corporate compliance, signed the breach notice filed with Delaware’s attorney general, which said unauthorized access happened between December 12 and 17, 2024, and that files were copied and taken.
The notice is dated May 30, 2025, and says the company finished reviewing the stolen files on March 3, 2025. Credit monitoring through IDX was offered at no cost, with an enrollment deadline of August 30, 2025. The hack was found on December 17, but it took months to work out whose records were inside the files, which is why the count of victims kept rising. Reports on the breach describe names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health insurance details, financial account information and medical information, with the mix differing from person to person.
Anyone who received a notice letter from Kelly Benefits or one of its clients is the obvious person to look at this settlement, and so is anyone who gets benefits through an employer that used the company. The claim site, run by the settlement administrator Kroll, is where a person can confirm whether their records are covered. Filing is done online or by paper form, and a claim needs a name and contact details plus, for larger payments, documents that prove a loss.
For people who got a Kelly Benefits letter and are unsure what to file, The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes the four-date rule for reading a settlement notice and a step-by-step filing walkthrough built for this kind of claim.
See the Kelly Benefits settlement notice dates and filing steps →
How the $5 million fund is divided
The money is not split evenly, and the order matters. According to Settlement Insight, which tracks class actions, the fund pays for three years of credit monitoring first. Next come documented losses of up to $5,000 per person, then a payment of about $100 for California residents, and the pro rata cash payment of about $50 comes last. Pro rata means each claimant gets an equal share of whatever money is left after the earlier categories are paid.
That order explains the wording on the claim site, which calls the $50 an approximation. If many people file for documented losses or the California payment, less money is left for the cash share, and Settlement Insight reports the $50 could fall, even to zero. The same account says credit monitoring time would also shrink if the fund ran short. The fund is non-reversionary, a legal term meaning unused money does not go back to Kelly Benefits, so any leftover is spread among claimants instead.
Documented losses are the category that pays real money. They cover unreimbursed costs that came from the breach, such as fraud on an account, identity theft expenses, bank fees, paid credit monitoring, postage, phone charges and mileage, from December 12, 2024 through December 28, 2026. Settlement Insight says a personal certification alone is not enough and that real documentation has to be attached. A person who lost nothing but time can still claim the cash share and the monitoring, but cannot count on more than the approximate $50.
Court approval, opt-out and the January hearing
The agreement is not final. The claim site’s FAQ lists the key dates: November 27, 2026 is the last day to opt out or object, claims are due online by December 28, and paper claims must be postmarked by December 31. The final approval hearing is set for January 12, 2027, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, in the case In re: Kelly Benefits Data Breach Litigation, number 1:25-cv-01304-SAG. The site says the court still has to decide whether to approve the deal.
Opting out is a real choice with a cost. A person who opts out keeps the right to sue Kelly Benefits alone but gets nothing from the fund, while a person who stays in and does nothing gives up the right to sue and receives nothing either. Objecting is for those who want the judge to reject the deal. Class lawyers Raina Borrelli of Strauss Borrelli and James Pizzirusso of Hausfeld are asking the court for up to $1,666,666 in fees plus expenses, and $2,500 for each of eight class representatives, according to Settlement Insight.
More than a dozen lawsuits followed the breach, and the settlement resolves them in one case before Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher. The claim site warns that dates can move and tells visitors to watch its homepage for changes. Payments normally go out only after the judge approves the deal and any appeals are over, so the cash and the credit monitoring could take months to arrive after the January hearing, and the administrator has not published a payment date.
Filing a Kelly Benefits claim before December 28
The free route is the Kelly Benefits settlement website, run by Kroll Settlement Administration. Claims are filed there online, or on a paper form mailed to Kroll at P.O. Box 5324, New York, NY 10150-5324. The administrator can also be reached at (833) 453-3640. A claim filed by December 28 online or postmarked by December 31 by mail counts, and nobody has to pay anyone to file.
Before filing, gather what separates the two kinds of claim. For the cash share, contact details are the main thing. For documented losses, collect bank statements showing fees or fraud, letters from a lender or card issuer, receipts for monitoring bought after December 2024, and a note of postage and mileage. Losses must trace to the breach, and anything the bank already refunded does not count as unreimbursed.
The weak point in the $50 figure is arithmetic. With 553,660 people in the class and $5 million in the fund, even a modest filing rate with documented losses can use up money meant for the $50 share, and legal fees come out of the same fund. Nobody has published how many claims have arrived, so the true cash amount will not be known until the January hearing and the administrator’s final count.
People who track many open class-action settlements at once can use MoneyPilot, a paid subscription service that lists open class-action settlements and shows which ones may match the subscriber, then files claim forms and tracks deadlines and payout status.
Click here to get MoneyPilot for tracking open settlement claims →
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Money Overview’s editorial team.
