Class Action Lawsuit Accuses Assurant of Ongoing Racial Discrimination

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

Assurant, Inc. is among the defendants in a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges Black employees at the insurance company have been subjected to “devastating ongoing racial discrimination.” 

The 54-page lawsuit out of New York further claims that when the plaintiffs, three Black current or former managers, reported on the alleged “horrific” racial discrimination to Assurant, they were met with indifference and subject to “blatant retaliation.” At the same time, Assurant “repeatedly promoted and rewarded the white individuals responsible for carrying out the racial discrimination,” the suit alleges.

The case says that rather than reward Black employees for their contributions to Assurant’s bottom line, the company’s executives, “all white males, treat them like second-class citizens.” The lawsuit also alleges Assurant’s white executives “knowingly and systematically” pay Black employees “substantially less” than their white peers.

“It is rare to see a public company flout its noncompliance with the law as brazenly as Assurant has done and continues to do,” the filing alleges. “Such abhorrent conduct perpetuates only when the directives come from the very top of the organization.”

According to the lawsuit, a white male manager based in Atlanta “repeatedly engaged in biased statements to employees,” including two of the plaintiffs. Such statements, the case claims, included comments on slavery and gun rights. 

The lawsuit alleges that this same manager “shockingly displayed three semi-automatic firearms on his desk” during a Zoom meeting that had at least 15 employees on the call, including two of the plaintiffs. According to the suit, this manager “proudly picked up one of his firearms to it [sic] show off and appallingly, pointed it into his camera at the employees.” During the meeting, another manager, supposedly feeling emboldened, also stated that he owns semi-automatic weapons, the case says. 

Given the manager’s “running commentary” about white people being the “majority” and remarks about slaves, the suit says, the man’s alleged behavior during the Zoom meeting was “highly disturbing and upsetting” to the plaintiffs, two of whom were among the four Black employees on the call.

“After years of experiencing second-class citizen status at Assurant, it was not lost on both Plaintiffs that had either one of them dared display a gun during a Zoom, much less point a semi-automatic weapon into the camera at other employees, they would have been labeled ‘gangsters’ and fired on the spot,” the lawsuit states. 

One plaintiff’s complaints about the alleged Zoom incident resulted in a single call with Assurant’s human resources department, which phoned several weeks later to inform the man that the matter was “resolved,” the complaint says. According to the case, the white manager refused to speak to the plaintiff once he found out about his outreach to human resources, going so far as to refuse to answer the man’s phone calls for eight months. The manager was recently promoted by Assurant, the suit states.

Further, the lawsuit alleges Assurant, using a “decades-old ‘commission formula,’” awards white employees higher base salaries, commissions and bonuses compared to those of Black workers. Per the suit, Assurant also assigns white employees more lucrative geographic sales districts, while directing Black employees to “the other side of the tracks” to make money from “the lowest performing and most problematic auto dealerships.”

According to the complaint, Assurant has been on notice for years of its apparent racially discriminatory practices but has done nothing in response. In reference to the company’s stated core values, the lawsuit scathes that “[t]here is nothing ‘decent,’ ‘honest’ or ‘respectful’ about treating Black employees ‘less than’ their white peers for no reason except the color of their skin.”

The lawsuit looks to represent all current and former Black Assurant finance specialists, district managers, senior district managers and area managers during the applicable statute of limitations period. 

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