USAA Late Fee Class Action Settlement: Eligibility, Payouts, and Dates

The USAA late fee class action settlement is a $5 million deal that pays interest to Maryland policyholders who were refunded improperly collected late fees under a 2020 state consent order but never received interest on those refunds. The case is Black et al. v. USAA General Indemnity Company, et al. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Preliminary approval came on December 16, 2025, and the final approval hearing was held on April 28, 2026.¹ Eligible class members do not need to file a claim.²

Who Qualifies for a Payment

The class is limited to Maryland policyholders. You are a class member if all of the following are true: you were charged a late fee by USAA General Indemnity Company, Garrison Property and Casualty Insurance Company, United Services Automobile Association, or USAA Casualty Insurance Company on a Maryland insurance policy before 2020; you received a refund of that fee under the 2020 consent order with the Maryland Insurance Administration; and you did not receive the accrued interest on that refund.³

The fees at issue fall into two windows:

All late fees charged between August 27, 2011, and January 23, 2019.
Late fees over $10 charged between January 23, 2019, and September 30, 2019.¹

If you were charged late fees on a USAA policy outside Maryland, or if you were charged fees but never received a refund under the 2020 consent order, the settlement does not cover you. The class is defined by that prior refund.

How Much You’ll Get and How the Money Arrives

The $5 million common fund covers class payments, up to $2 million in attorneys’ fees, litigation costs, and service awards to the named plaintiffs.² Court filings from April 2026 show $18,000 in total service awards were granted, and class counsel requested roughly $1.98 million in fees and costs, staying under the $2 million cap.⁴

Individual payments are not a set amount. Your share depends on how many late fees you were charged, how long ago you paid them, and how many people are in the class. The settlement website does not publish a per-person figure.¹⁵⁶

Payment reaches you automatically. Current USAA policyholders will see a statement credit. Former policyholders will receive a check in the mail. JND Legal Administration is the settlement administrator.² Any funds still undistributed nine months after the initial payout will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project and Face the Fight.⁷

When Payments Will Be Sent

The final approval hearing took place April 28, 2026. Court filings from the day of and after the hearing show the judge issued an order and awarded the service awards, and class counsel filed supplemental declarations supporting their fee request.⁴ As of the most recent update, the official settlement site lists the hearing as passed but has not yet confirmed a final approval order or the start of distribution.³

Under the settlement agreement, payments become final ten days after the court’s judgment is no longer subject to appeal.⁸ If no appeal is filed, distribution can begin relatively soon after that window closes; an appeal would push things out further.

The deadlines to opt out, object, or file a notice of intent to appear all passed in March and April 2026.⁹ If you did nothing, you remain in the class, are eligible for an automatic payment, and give up the right to sue USAA over the same issues.²

What the Case Was About

In 2011, USAA withdrew its Maryland billing plan and filed a new one that did not include authorization for the $10 late fee it had previously been allowed to charge. The new filing took effect August 27, 2011. Even so, USAA kept charging late fees on Maryland policies for roughly eight more years, collecting about $8.1 million from over 127,000 customers between 2011 and 2019.⁸⁵

The issue surfaced in 2018 through a policyholder complaint to the Maryland Insurance Administration. That triggered a regulatory investigation, and in 2020 USAA entered into Consent Order MIA-2020-08-002, which called the continued fee collection “inadvertent.” USAA refunded about $7.3 million and paid a $67,500 administrative penalty. The consent order did not require interest on the refunds and expressly permitted civil litigation.⁶¹

Lead plaintiff Walter Black III and co-plaintiffs Keith Barr, Wayne Best, and David Fant Sr. filed suit in 2021, arguing that USAA had no basis to keep the interest and financial gains it earned holding those funds for years before refunding them. In June 2024, the court dismissed a breach of contract claim but allowed unjust enrichment and money-had-and-received claims to proceed. Mediation followed in November 2024 with former federal Judge Benson E. Legg, and the parties reached agreement in June 2025.⁵

USAA has denied wrongdoing throughout, maintaining that it followed state law, was authorized to charge the fees, and that refunding without interest was reasonable. The settlement includes no admission of liability.⁶³

1
ClassAction.org. $5M USAA Settlement Ends Class Action Lawsuit Alleging Unlawful Retention of Interest Collected on Late Fees
2
USAA Late Fee Litigation. Frequently Asked Questions
3
USAA Late Fee Litigation. Settlement Home Page
4
Kontent Assets. Supplemental Declaration of Andrea R. Gold in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Award of Attorneys’ Fees, Costs and Service Awards
5
San Antonio Express-News. USAA Class Action Lawsuit Late Fees
6
PropertyCasualty360. USAA Agrees to $5M Settlement in Late Fee Class Action
7
Top Class Actions. $5M USAA Maryland Late Fee Class Action Settlement
8
ClassAction.org. Black v. USAA Settlement Agreement
9
USAA Late Fee Litigation. Important Dates