This settlement covers the February 2024 data security incident at EFS Advisors and Educators Benefit Consultants, the Minnesota benefits firm that does business as Aviben. If you were notified that your information may have been accessed, you can claim a flat $50 or up to $2,500 in documented losses, plus a year of three-bureau credit monitoring — but the deadline to opt out lands two weeks before the claim deadline.
Current Status
Claims are open. The deadline to submit a Claim Form is October 22, 2026, online or postmarked. The deadline to exclude yourself or to object is earlier — October 7, 2026 — so the first decision to make is whether to stay in at all. The court has not yet decided whether to approve the settlement: the Isanti County District Court granted preliminary approval and authorized this notice, and the final approval hearing is set for November 6, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. Central, by Zoom. No payments have been issued and no payment date has been announced; the Notice says benefits are issued only after the settlement is approved and becomes final, and appeals can extend that. If you received a notice with a Notice ID and Confirmation Code, the action to take now is to file before October 22.What Changed Recently?
The claim window opened after the Isanti County District Court entered an order granting preliminary approval of the class action settlement, which authorized the notice now reaching class members and put the November 6, 2026 final approval hearing on the calendar. That order is posted alongside the Notice, Claim Form and Settlement Agreement on the settlement website's Important Documents page.The case is Kennedy, et al. v. EFS Advisors, LLC, et al., Case No. 30-cv-24-649, in the Isanti County (Minnesota) District Court. The defendants are EFS Advisors, LLC and Educators Benefit Consultants, LLC, which does business as Aviben. The Notice describes the underlying event as an unauthorized third-party attempt to access the defendants' computer network, detected on or about February 22, 2024, during which the unauthorized actor may have accessed impacted individuals' Private Information.
Worth knowing before you read further: the Notice is unusually sparse about the incident itself. It does not list the categories of data involved and does not state how many people are in the class. For the data categories it points to the Settlement Agreement's definition of Private Information and to the Consolidated Class Action Complaint, both posted on the settlement website. For your own situation, the breach notification letter you received in 2024 is the document that names the specific elements.
The parties disagree over the legal claims. The Notice states that the action has not gone to trial and that the court has not decided in favor of either side; the parties agreed to settle after weighing the risks and uncertainties of continuing to litigate. Nothing in the settlement is a determination that either defendant did anything wrong.
Who Qualifies?
The Settlement Class is defined broadly: all living individuals in the United States whose Private Information was potentially accessed in the Data Security Incident. There is no purchase requirement, no state limitation, and no requirement that you suffered fraud or identity theft.Three groups are carved out. Excluded from the class are the directors, officers and agents of the defendant; governmental entities; and the judge assigned to the action, that judge's immediate family, and court staff.
Because the class is defined by whose information was in the affected systems rather than by anything you did, the practical test is whether the administrator sent you a notice with a Notice ID and Confirmation Code. Many people in a class like this never had a direct relationship with either company — a benefits administrator typically holds employee information supplied through an employer's plan. If you are unsure whether you are included, the settlement website's contact page is the route to ask.
How Much Can You Get?
Everyone who submits a timely, valid Claim Form may claim two things: one year of three-bureau credit monitoring that includes at least $1,000,000 in identity theft insurance, and one of two cash options. The credit monitoring is not an either-or against the cash — the choice is only between the two cash options.The first cash option is reimbursement of documented out-of-pocket losses, up to $2,500 per claimant, for unreimbursed losses fairly traceable to the incident. The second is an Alternative Cash Payment of $50, a one-time flat payment described in the Notice as the option for class members who are not seeking documented-loss compensation.
The number to understand here is the $850,000, and specifically what it has to cover. It is an Aggregate Cap rather than a fund reserved for class payments: the Notice states that the maximum the defendants will pay is $850,000 including all payments to Settlement Class Members, Class Counsel's fees and costs, service awards for the class representatives, notice and administration expenses, credit monitoring, and any other payments required under the settlement. If approved claims plus all those other costs exceed the cap, each class member's individual cash payment is reduced pro rata.
That makes the disclosed deductions worth doing the arithmetic on. Class Counsel will move for a fee and cost award not to exceed $325,000, and will seek service awards of up to $2,500 for each of the three class representatives, $7,500 in total. Subtracting the full requested amounts from $850,000 leaves roughly $517,500 — and notice, administration, and a year of credit monitoring for every claimant all still come out of that. The court may award less than the amounts requested, which would leave more for the class. Whether a pro rata reduction actually bites depends on how many people file.
Separately, the defendants have committed to taking reasonable steps to further enhance the security of their systems and environments, and will give Class Counsel a confidential declaration describing the security changes made since the incident. The Notice states that the cost of those measures is separate from, and does not reduce, the benefits offered to the class.
Cash is issued by the payment method you select on the Claim Form, and credit monitoring is activated through an email the administrator sends after final approval. Both come only after the settlement becomes final.
What Proof Is Required?
There are two separate proof questions on this settlement, and they have different answers.Filing at all requires an administrator-issued credential. The online claim portal asks for a Notice ID and a Confirmation Code from the personalized notice mailed or emailed to you, and the Notice ID must be entered exactly as printed. Under OCA's standard, a credential that gates the claim counts as proof, because someone who never received the notice or no longer has it cannot file without first contacting the administrator. The settlement website's contact page is the route to request a replacement Claim Form or ask about your codes.
Documenting a loss is a second question, and only applies if you want more than $50. The $50 Alternative Cash Payment requires no receipts or records at all. The up-to-$2,500 tier requires reasonable documentation that you did not create yourself — receipts, credit card statements, bank statements, invoices, telephone records, or similar third-party records. Self-prepared documents such as handwritten receipts are not sufficient on their own, though the Notice allows them to add clarity to other documentation you submit.
Three categories of loss qualify for that tier. Out-of-pocket expenses incurred as a result of the incident, including bank fees, long-distance phone charges, cell phone charges only if billed by the minute, data charges only if billed by amount used, postage, or gasoline for local travel. Fees for credit reports, credit monitoring or other identity theft insurance products purchased between February 22, 2024 and October 22, 2026. And monetary losses from fraud or identity theft that are fairly traceable to the incident, occurred after it and before October 22, 2026, and for which you made reasonable efforts to seek reimbursement or avoid the loss, including exhausting any available credit monitoring and identity theft insurance. You cannot be reimbursed for an expense another source has already paid.
What Is the Deadline?
Three deadlines, on two different dates, and the earlier one is the one people miss.Claim Forms must be submitted online by October 22, 2026, or mailed and postmarked no later than October 22, 2026. The Notice gives only the date, with no cutoff time or timezone for online submissions, so treat the date itself as the limit.
Requests for exclusion must be postmarked or received by October 7, 2026. A valid request has to be personally signed by the class member and give your name, address, telephone number, email address if you have one, and a statement that you want to be excluded. The Notice is specific that nobody may opt out on another person's behalf, that group or aggregate opt-outs are void, and that more than one class member cannot be excluded on a single paper. If you opt out, you receive no benefits and cannot object.
Objections must be filed with the Isanti County District Court no later than October 7, 2026, with copies sent to Class Counsel, defendants' counsel and the Settlement Administrator postmarked by the same date. The required contents are unusually detailed: your name and contact information, every ground for the objection with any legal support, the number of times you have objected to a class action settlement in the preceding five years along with case captions and copies of any orders ruling on those objections, the same history for your counsel and their firm, the identity of all counsel representing you and whether they will appear, a list of any witnesses, a statement of whether you intend to appear or testify, and your own signature — an attorney's signature alone is not enough. The Notice also warns that Class Counsel or defendants' counsel may conduct limited discovery on an objector.
Because October 7 controls both opting out and objecting, it is effectively the decision date on this settlement. Missing it means you are in the class and bound by the release, whether or not you go on to file a claim by October 22.
How Do You Take Action?
File online at the official settlement website, EFS Data Settlement, using the Notice ID and Confirmation Code from your notice. You can also download a full Claim Form from the site and return it by mail, or complete and return the Claim Form that came attached to your mailed notice; a replacement form can be requested through the site's contact page.Before you decide, note how broad the release is. The Released Claims cover any and all liabilities, claims, causes of action, damages, penalties, costs, fees, losses and remedies — known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, legal, statutory or equitable — that result from, arise out of, are based upon or relate to the Data Security Incident under any theory, together with conduct that was alleged or could have been alleged in the action and the complaints filed in it. It reaches beyond the incident itself to the defendants' information security policies and practices and their maintenance or storage of personal information. Staying in the class means giving all of that up.
One point worth being direct about: doing nothing is the worst of the available options. You stay bound by the release either way, so a class member who never files gives up those claims and receives nothing in exchange.
What Happens Next?
The next milestone is the final approval hearing on November 6, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. Central, held by Zoom. At the hearing the court will consider whether the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate, whether to enter judgment approving it, and whether to approve Class Counsel's fee and cost award and the service awards. The court will consider any objections filed and will hear from people who asked to speak.Attending is optional. Class Counsel will answer the court's questions, and a timely, complete objection is considered whether or not you appear. If you do want to speak, you must say so in your written objection and identify any witnesses or exhibits — you cannot decide to speak on the day. The Notice also cautions that the hearing date and time may change without further notice to the class, so the settlement website is the place to confirm before the date.
If the court approves the settlement and it becomes final, the administrator sends an activation email for the credit monitoring to the address given on your Claim Form, and issues cash by the payment method you selected. The Notice does not publish a funding or payment schedule and no payment date has been announced. It notes that the approval process takes time and that appeals may have to be resolved first.
Sources and Verification
This page is based on the official settlement website and the court-authorized Notice of Proposed Class Action Settlement issued in Kennedy, et al. v. EFS Advisors, LLC, et al., Case No. 30-cv-24-649, Isanti County (Minnesota) District Court.- Official settlement website — EFS Data Settlement (claim portal, FAQs, important dates, important documents)
- Notice of Proposed Class Action Settlement, authorized by the Isanti County District Court (embedded below)
- Claim Form, Settlement Agreement, and the Order Granting Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement, all posted on the settlement website's Important Documents page
For related coverage, see the full list of open data breach settlements with claims open, the broader list of open class action settlements, or the explainers on data breach class actions and how settlement funds get divided.
Questions
Why does the opt-out deadline fall 15 days before the claim deadline?
It is simply how this settlement's schedule was set, and it matters because the earlier date is the one that decides whether you keep any right to sue. October 7, 2026 is the deadline both to exclude yourself and to object. October 22, 2026 is the deadline to file a claim. That means the decision with the longest-lasting consequence comes first: if October 7 passes and you have not opted out, you are in the class and bound by the release whether or not you ever file a claim. Treat October 7 as the real first deadline on this settlement rather than working backward from October 22.
The Notice seems to contradict itself about opting out and still filing a claim. Which version controls?
There is a genuine inconsistency in the Notice, and it is worth knowing about before you act. In the rights-and-options table at the front, the Object row says that if you exclude yourself you cannot object, but that you may still submit a Claim Form to receive Settlement Benefits. Every other place in the same Notice says the opposite: the Submit a Claim row states that only Settlement Class Members who do not exclude themselves are eligible to submit a Claim Form, and FAQ 19 answers the question directly with No, adding that you are only eligible for benefits if you stay in the Settlement and submit a valid Claim Form. The consistent reading, and the one the Settlement Agreement's structure supports, is that opting out forfeits all benefits. Do not rely on that one table row. If this affects your decision, ask the Settlement Administrator through the official settlement website before the October 7 opt-out deadline.
Is the $50 Alternative Cash Payment guaranteed, or can it shrink?
It can shrink. The $850,000 is an Aggregate Cap, not a fund set aside purely for class payments. The same $850,000 has to absorb every cash payment to class members, Class Counsel's fees and costs, the service awards, the notice and administration expenses, and the cost of the credit monitoring. The Notice states that if the total value of approved claims plus all other costs exceeds the Aggregate Cap, each class member's individual cash payment is reduced pro rata. Because Class Counsel may seek up to $325,000 in fees and costs and up to $7,500 in service awards, roughly $517,500 of the cap remains before notice, administration and credit monitoring are paid for. Whether a pro rata reduction actually happens depends on how many people file.
Can I get the credit monitoring and a cash payment, or do I have to choose?
You can claim both. Under the Notice, every Settlement Class Member who submits a timely and valid Claim Form may claim one year of three-bureau credit monitoring that includes at least $1,000,000 in identity theft insurance, and one of the two cash options. The choice is only between the two cash options: either the flat $50 Alternative Cash Payment, or reimbursement of documented out-of-pocket losses up to $2,500. Those two are alternatives to each other, and the Notice describes the $50 as the option for class members who are not seeking documented-loss compensation.
What documentation does the up-to-$2,500 tier actually require?
Reasonable documentation that you did not create yourself. The Notice lists receipts, credit card statements, bank statements, invoices, telephone records and similar third-party records. Self-prepared documents such as handwritten receipts are not sufficient on their own, though they can be submitted to add clarity to other documentation. Three categories of loss qualify: out-of-pocket expenses fairly traceable to the incident, such as bank fees, postage, or gasoline for local travel; fees for credit reports, credit monitoring or other identity theft products purchased between February 22, 2024 and October 22, 2026; and monetary losses from fraud or identity theft that are fairly traceable to the incident, occurred after it and before October 22, 2026, and for which you made reasonable efforts to seek reimbursement or avoid the loss. You cannot be reimbursed for an expense another source has already covered.
The Notice does not say what information was exposed. Where can I find that?
The court-authorized Notice describes the incident only in general terms — an unauthorized third-party attempt to access the Defendants' computer network, detected on or about February 22, 2024, during which the unauthorized actor may have accessed impacted individuals' Private Information. It does not enumerate the specific data categories and does not state how many people are in the class. Two documents fill that gap: the Settlement Agreement, which defines Private Information, and the Consolidated Class Action Complaint, both posted on the official settlement website. The most specific answer for your own situation is the data breach notification letter the company sent you in 2024, which lists the elements involved for you individually.
