People whose information was caught in the August 2025 cyberattack on the Institute for Human Resources and Services can claim a one-time $45 payment with no proof, or up to $2,000 for documented losses, until December 2. The settlement, which a Pennsylvania court has yet to approve, also offers two years of identity-theft monitoring. A December 17 hearing comes before any money moves.
A Pennsylvania nonprofit and an August 2025 intrusion
The defendant is the Institute for Human Resources and Services, a Pennsylvania nonprofit, in Tereska v. Institute for Human Resources and Services, No. 2026-02353, in the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County. The suit alleges that files holding private information were accessed in a targeted cyberattack in August 2025.
The settlement site says the exposed data may include names, dates of birth, Social Security or taxpayer identification numbers, driver’s license or state ID numbers, medical record numbers, and details of a person’s medical history, condition, treatment or diagnosis. A Social Security number sitting next to a diagnosis is the combination that makes a breach costly to clean up.
The class is everyone in the United States whose private information was accessed in the breach. In practice, membership follows the mailed notice, which carries the Login ID and PIN used to file online. The institute’s directors, officers and agents, government entities and court staff are excluded.
Retirement deadlines, in your inbox: Miss an enrollment or claim deadline and the money can be gone. Join the Retirement Money Brief and we’ll send you our Scam & Identity-Theft Action Card as a welcome gift.
Get the Brief + the scam action card →
We may earn a commission from links on this page.
No pot of money to divide, just a promise to pay each claim
Most settlements announce a fund and let the claims shrink it. This one does not. OpenClassActions’s summary says the deal has no aggregate fund and that the institute pays valid claims directly. The settlement site’s FAQ lists the $45 as a one-time payment and describes no reduction to it.
Without a fund there is no published total, so the number of valid claims is the only thing that sets what the institute pays. OpenClassActions’s summary makes the institute itself the payer, so court approval and the appeals period come before any check issues.
Lawyers’ pay sits outside the claims too. Class counsel will ask the court for $120,000 in fees and litigation costs and a $1,500 service award for the class representative, and the FAQ says the institute pays both. Nothing set aside for the lawyers is taken out of what a claimant receives.
The court has not approved any of it. The FAQ says payments go out only if the judge grants final approval and after any appeals are resolved, and it says nobody yet knows whether an appeal will be filed or how long one would take. No payment date has been announced.
What the $45 skips and what the $2,000 demands
A class member picks one cash option. Cash Payment B is the $45, and it requires no documents. Cash Payment A reimburses actual out-of-pocket losses from the breach, up to $2,000, and the FAQ says those losses must fall between August 13, 2025 and December 2, 2026.
The $2,000 is a ceiling, not a payment. The FAQ says proof such as bank statements or receipts is required, that self-made notes alone are not enough, and that anything already reimbursed by a third party cannot be claimed again. A person with $30 in documented costs is paid more by taking the $45.
Monitoring is offered on top of cash. The FAQ says class members get two years of CyEx Financial Shield Complete, which includes $1 million in financial fraud insurance, and that enrollment codes were sent by postcard or email. The monitoring and the cash choice are listed as separate benefits.
A week to opt out, then a December 17 hearing
Three dates run in order, and the first is the tightest. November 2 closes both the request to be excluded and any objection to the deal. December 2 closes the claim itself, online or postmarked. Judge review comes last, on December 17 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern over the phone, a date the administrator’s own answers say could shift.
Three ways to file are listed on the settlement website. The online claim form is described as the fastest. A printable form can be mailed to the administrator, Simpluris, and a paper copy can be requested by phone at (888) 836-1710 or by email to info@InstituteHRDataSettlement.com.
OpenClassActions notes that as of September 24, 2026, final approval had not been granted and no payment date had been announced. The timetable is therefore front-loaded with decisions and back-loaded with money. Class members choose by December 2 and then wait for a judge and for any appeal period to run.
The loss window for Cash Payment A closes the same day as the claim deadline, December 2, 2026. Costs from the weeks between now and then still count toward the $2,000, which matters for anyone still replacing cards or paying for credit reports after the breach.
For a person holding the notice, the choice is narrow. The $45 fits someone who has seen nothing wrong, and the $2,000 route fits someone with statements that show fraud or the cost of replacing accounts. Either way the claim is due December 2, and the opt-out date comes a month earlier, on November 2.
Notice from the Institute for Human Resources and Services in the mailbox?
A claim that misses December 2 pays neither the $45 nor the reimbursement, and the $2,000 route depends on bank statements or receipts that may be scattered across months. The opt-out date, the claim date and the hearing date also fall on three different days.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes the four-date rule for reading a settlement notice, which sorts November 2, December 2 and December 17 into the right order, plus a step-by-step filing walkthrough and a claim log and payment tracker. Part 5, Proof: Claiming When the Receipts Are Gone, speaks to exactly the $45 versus $2,000 decision.
Get the filing walkthrough and claim tracker for the IHRS $45-or-$2,000 choice due December 2 →
More Financial Reading
- 21 Ways to Stretch a $2,087 Social Security Check
- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- 15 Steps to Stop the Scams That Took $7.7 Billion From Seniors
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
