McLean Mortgage breach claims are due December 10, with $45 or loss options

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes.

Key facts

McLean Mortgage Corporation has a proposed settlement over its October 2024 data incident.
The class covers living U.S. residents whose personal information was potentially compromised, including notice recipients, subject to exclusions.
Cash options include documented ordinary losses up to $1,000, extraordinary fraud losses up to $4,000 and qualifying response time, or a $45 alternative instead of other cash benefits.
Lost time is limited to four hours at $25 per hour and counts within the $1,000 ordinary-loss cap.
Class members may separately claim three years of CyEx Financial Shield Complete monitoring.
Claims are due online or by mail postmark December 10, 2026. Objections and exclusion requests have a November 10, 2026 deadline.
Final approval is pending, with a hearing scheduled for December 10, 2026 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

What the McLean settlement offers

People potentially affected by McLean Mortgage Corporation's October 2024 data incident have a court-authorized claims process for cash benefits and additional identity-protection services. The settlement remains proposed, so an approved claim is not a promise of immediate payment.

The case is In re McLean Data Breach Litigation, No. 3:25-cv-00461, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. That is the federal trial court handling the combined dispute. The words "In re" identify a proceeding concerning a subject, here related lawsuits arising from the same data incident.

Judge Roderick C. Young granted preliminary approval on August 12, 2026 after considering the proposed settlement. The order authorizes notice and provisionally approves a class for settlement purposes. It does not determine that McLean committed wrongdoing or that the plaintiffs proved each alleged injury.

McLean denies liability and says it has defenses to the claims. The parties agreed to settle to avoid further risk, expense and disruption. Final approval, claim review and the settlement becoming effective remain necessary steps before benefits are distributed.

Receiving a notice is not the same as receiving a payment

The official process requires a valid, timely claim. Final court approval and the settlement's other conditions still apply.

The lender, the plaintiffs and the administrator

McLean Mortgage Corporation is the mortgage lender whose systems and records are at issue. A mortgage is a loan used to finance real estate. The relevant records here include information associated with current or former customers and employees, according to the settlement agreement. The dispute concerns protection of that information, not cancellation of a mortgage or a refund of every loan charge.

The class representatives are Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan, Micah Parks and Priscilla Millberry. They are the named people pursuing the litigation on behalf of others with similar claims. David K. Lietz of Milberg, PLLC and A. Brooke Murphy of Murphy Law Firm are the court-appointed class counsel, the lawyers representing the settlement group.

Simpluris, Inc. is the administrator appointed by the preliminary order. It handles notice and settlement administration, including the claim process. It is not the lender or the judge. Its current official site is McLeanDataSettlement.com, and the settlement contact number is (833) 200-6767.

CyEx Financial Shield Complete is the protection service offered as a settlement benefit. It is separate from Simpluris's claims-administration work and from the earlier IDX protection described in McLean's 2025 incident notice. Different provider names refer to different parts of the response, not interchangeable enrollment programs.

The incident and notification chronology

McLean's company-authored notification filed with Delaware's attorney general says it identified suspicious digital activity on October 17, 2024, secured its network and retained forensic specialists. Digital forensics is an investigation of computer evidence to understand an incident and which information may have been involved.

The company said an unauthorized actor gained access to its network and may have downloaded files. It then reviewed potentially affected data. That review was completed on May 12, 2025, according to the notification, followed by written notice on or about June 11, 2025.

The Delaware filing identifies approximately 597 Delaware residents. That is a state-specific notice count, not the total settlement class. The settlement agreement and preliminary order identify approximately 30,453 people whose information was potentially affected, including current and former customers or employees.

Potential data categories include names, Social Security numbers, driver's-license numbers, financial-account numbers, passport numbers and health-insurance information. The agreement says the information varied by individual. This list should not be read as proof that every category was present in every affected file or that each person suffered identity theft.

The company's notice describes steps to secure and investigate the network, report the incident to federal law enforcement and offer identity-protection services. Those are company statements about its response. They do not resolve the plaintiffs' allegations about whether its safeguards had been adequate before the incident.

The agreement says initial lawsuits followed the notices, the cases were consolidated on October 9, 2025, and a consolidated complaint was filed on November 24, 2025. Consolidation means the related cases were brought together. Settlement discussions included an exchange of information about the incident, affected people and data types before the parties reached their agreement.

The July 27, 2026 preliminary-approval hearing was followed by the August 12 order. The current official notice now supplies the claim, rights and final-hearing dates. Those later litigation developments are separate from the original October 2024 intrusion and June 2025 notices.

Who may qualify

The settlement class consists of living people residing in the United States whose personally identifiable information was potentially compromised in McLean's incident on or around October 17, 2024, including those sent an incident notice. Personally identifiable information means information associated with a particular individual, the category abbreviated as PII in the legal documents.

A mortgage relationship alone does not prove membership. The relevant question is whether the person's information falls within the incident-based definition. People who are unsure can ask the official administrator for help rather than infer inclusion from the lender's name.

The notice excludes McLean officers, directors and entities it controls; its affiliates, legal representatives, attorneys, successors, heirs and assigns; and the assigned judge, the judge's family and staff. People who validly opt out also cannot receive settlement benefits.

The class has been provisionally approved for settlement purposes, not certified for a contested trial on liability. The court's procedural decision allows notice and review of the agreement without deciding that all underlying allegations are true.

How the cash and monitoring choices work

Ordinary expenses and response time

The ordinary-loss benefit reimburses qualifying actual, documented and unreimbursed costs up to $1,000. The notice identifies costs incurred between October 17, 2024 and December 10, 2026, such as credit reports, monitoring, replacement identification and relevant postage.

Independent documents are required. Receipts, statements or other third-party records should establish the expense and connection to the incident. Self-created notes can explain other evidence but are not sufficient alone, and expenses already reimbursed by another source cannot be paid again.

Response time is a separate type of claim within that same cap. A member can claim up to four hours at $25 an hour, for a maximum of $100, by describing incident-related tasks and signing the required statement under penalty of perjury. Ordinary losses and claimed time together cannot exceed $1,000.

Extraordinary fraud or identity-theft losses

The extraordinary-loss option covers qualifying documented losses up to $4,000 from actual fraud or identity theft directly caused by the incident. The claimant must show a loss not already covered by the ordinary category and reasonable efforts to prevent or recover it, such as pursuing available insurance or a financial institution's fraud protections.

The notice uses the same October 17, 2024 through December 10, 2026 loss period. Police reports, submitted insurance claims and other third-party records may support the request. Neither the cap nor the existence of a data incident guarantees that a particular fraud loss will be approved.

The $45 alternative

Instead of the other cash payments, a member may choose a one-time $45 alternative. No documentation of monetary loss is required, but the person must still establish class membership and submit an accurate, timely claim. The alternative cannot be combined with ordinary losses, extraordinary losses or response-time compensation.

The $45 option replaces other cash benefits

It is not a bonus added to documented-loss payments. Lost time also is not an extra $100 on top of the $1,000 ordinary-loss cap.

Three years of monitoring

Class members may separately request three years of CyEx Financial Shield Complete one-bureau monitoring, meaning monitoring of one credit-reporting bureau's information. The notice also describes financial-fraud monitoring, resolution assistance and a $1 million financial-fraud insurance limit.

That insurance limit is not a settlement check or a guaranteed insurance payment. Coverage is a service benefit, and the notice says emailed codes and instructions are used to activate the subscription. Monitoring can accompany either permitted cash path.

The agreement is claims-made, meaning McLean funds approved individual claims under the specified terms rather than distributing a stated common fund equally to everyone. This report therefore does not invent a total consumer cash pool or calculate an average award.

How to claim and preserve separate rights

Submit a claim through the official website or download and mail the form. Online claims must be submitted by December 10, 2026. Mailed forms, including the signature and supporting documents, must be postmarked by that date. Review the actual form rather than treating a summary as a substitute for its certifications.

Class Action Pulse's McLean case page provides a related overview. A request submitted to this publication is not a settlement claim. Only the official administrator's process can satisfy the claim requirement.

Exclusion and objection have an earlier deadline of November 10, 2026. Exclusion, or opting out, removes a person from the settlement while preserving any individual rights they may have over the released claims. It also gives up settlement benefits.

An objection tells the court why a person remaining in the class believes the agreement should not be approved. The notice requires filing the objection with the court and mailing a copy to the administrator under its stated requirements. That is not the same procedure as sending an exclusion request.

There are two deadlines with different consequences

November 10 governs exclusion and objections. December 10 governs claims. Doing nothing is not an automatic claim or an opt-out request.

If the settlement becomes final, members who remain give up the legal claims covered by its release, the agreement's provision ending those claims against the released parties. People who do nothing receive no benefit but can still be bound. The full agreement explains the scope; this report does not advise which option any individual should choose.

The court process and unresolved issues

The final approval hearing is scheduled for December 10, 2026 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time in the Richmond federal courthouse, with a virtual option at the court's discretion. The notice says attendance is not required to receive an approved benefit, and hearing arrangements can change.

The court will consider whether the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate, along with objections and the requested attorney fees and representative awards. The notice describes a request for $250,000 in attorney fees and costs and $2,500 for each representative, paid by McLean and subject to approval. These are not amounts promised to ordinary members.

The reviewed sources do not establish final approval, a distribution date or proof that every affected person's information was misused. They also do not supply a complete merits ruling resolving each alleged legal theory. The settlement preserves McLean's denial, including its denial that the proposed group should be certified for a trial.

The current official notice, agreement and court order control the settlement description. McLean's older incident notice supplies response chronology, not today's settlement enrollment instructions. The next milestones are the separate rights deadline, the claim deadline and final approval review, subject to official updates.

Frequently asked questions

Who may qualify for the McLean Mortgage settlement?

Living U.S. residents whose personal information was potentially compromised in the October 2024 incident may qualify, including notice recipients, subject to exclusions and claim requirements.

Can I claim $45 and documented losses?

No. The $45 alternative replaces other cash payments. Monitoring is a separate benefit that can accompany either permitted cash path.

Is lost time separate from the $1,000 ordinary-loss limit?

No. Up to four hours at $25 per hour counts within that limit when combined with ordinary losses.

When must I file a claim?

Submit online or mail a completed claim postmarked by December 10, 2026. Exclusion and objections have a November 10 deadline.

Does the monitoring benefit pay me $1 million?

No. The figure is an insurance limit described in the protection service, not a settlement award or guaranteed insurance payment.

Has the court granted final approval?

Final approval was not established by the reviewed record. The official site schedules a December 10, 2026 hearing, and distribution depends on approval and resolution of appeals.