GEICO Owes Special Investigators Unpaid Overtime, Lawsuit Alleges

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class and collective action lawsuit alleges GEICO unlawfully requires special investigators to perform off-the-clock work, including significant overtime work, without pay.

Want to stay in the loop on class actions that matter to you? Sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.

The 35-page lawsuit was filed by two former GEICO employees hired to investigate claims of suspected insurance fraud. The complaint says that GEICO, despite assigning special investigators an “ever-increasing” workload the insurer knew would take more than 40 hours each week to complete, used an evaluation system that would reduce an employee’s performance rating if they clocked more than 7.75 hours per day, or 38.75 hours per week.

The plaintiffs allege that although they routinely worked more than 40 hours each week in order to meet GEICO’s quotas, employees who failed to complete their work within allotted 38.75 hours risked disciplinary action, including the possibility of termination. What’s more, GEICO prohibited special investigators from working overtime without prior permission, and routinely denied permission when asked, the suit asserts.

“[T]he predictable result,” the case says, “was that special investigators worked off the clock and did not report those hours in GEICO’s timekeeping system.”

The lawsuit claims that GEICO’s “widespread, repeated, and consistent” effort to minimize labor expenses violates state and federal labor laws, which require employers to pay workers one-and-a-half times their regular hourly rate for every hour worked in excess of 40 each week.

The plaintiffs allege that GEICO’s labor law violations were intentional, noting that in 2021, the company faced at least six lawsuits filed by insurance adjusters who claimed they were owed unpaid overtime wages for off-the-clock work.

One of the plaintiffs says that throughout her employment with GEICO between February 2019 and August 2021, she regularly worked more than eight hours each day investigating the cases assigned to her but was directed by supervisors to report no more than 7.75 hours on her timecard daily. According to the complaint, the plaintiff recalls an instance in October 2020 in which she entered more than these allocated hours into GEICO’s timekeeping system and her supervisor altered her timecard to reflect only 38.75 hours for that workweek.

The suit notes that during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, GEICO nearly doubled the plaintiff’s caseload based on the “inaccurate assumption” that remote work could be completed in less time. Per the filing, the woman had to work significant overtime hours to keep up with performance metrics but did not receive proper compensation, save for a few “rare exceptions” throughout her employment.

The proposed class and collective action lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States, excluding New York, who worked as a non-exempt GEICO special investigator (including comparable roles with different titles) at any time within the past three years.

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.