Globe Life Inc. is a life and supplemental health insurance holding company based in McKinney, Texas, and listed on the NYSE (GL). Its subsidiaries include American Income Life Insurance Company (AIL), which sells through exclusive independent agents. Underwriting life and health insurance means handling sensitive health and financial data. Globe Life's and AIL's privacy notices also permit data from consumer reporting agencies, profile inferences, advertising pixels that link data across devices, and sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising that can include which insurance products a person bought. Both companies say they do not sell California consumers' data and recognize Global Privacy Control. Its 2024 security record is poor. In June it disclosed a web-portal access-control failure found after a state regulator's inquiry. In October an extortionist obtained data on about 5,000 AIL customers and leads, including Social Security numbers and health data, from databases run by independent agency owners. Globe Life refused to pay and notified about 850,000 more people as a precaution. The resulting class action settled for $4.66 million, and AIL separately agreed to a $14 million settlement of Do Not Call telemarketing claims. The companies deny liability in both cases.
TRACK RECORD
3 ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS
[2025-03-21]
In Fuld v. American Income Life Insurance Company, No. 1:23-cv-01420 (S.D. Ind.), the plaintiff's memorandum supporting preliminary approval describes a $14 million non-reversionary fund. It would settle Telephone Consumer Protection Act Do Not Call claims over repeated telemarketing calls from AIL-affiliated agents to 49,695 consumers on the National Do Not Call Registry, whose numbers the memorandum says agents bought from an approved vendor after the consumers signed up for a free will kit online. The court granted preliminary approval on August 29, 2025. The memorandum notes that AIL denies any liability.
Globe Life's amended SEC filing on its October 2024 incident confirms that an extortionist obtained the personal information of about 5,000 American Income Life customers and leads. That information included names, contact details and, in some cases, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health-related data and policy information, and some of it was passed to short sellers and plaintiffs' attorneys. Globe Life did not pay the extortion demand. Because it could not rule out wider access, it notified and offered credit monitoring to about 850,000 more people whose data sat in the same databases. It says it could not confirm whether their data was taken.
In a June 2024 SEC filing, Globe Life disclosed that after an inquiry from a state insurance regulator it found vulnerabilities in access permissions and user identity management on one of its web portals. The company said those vulnerabilities likely resulted in unauthorized access to certain consumer and policyholder information, and that it removed external access to the portal.
Globe Life / American Income Life data breach settlement ($4.66M); claims due Oct. 19, 2026
You may be eligible if Globe Life or American Income Life sent you a letter saying your personal information may have been exposed in the October 2024 data incident.
Globe Life's Online Privacy Notice, which covers home.globelifeinsurance.com and the Globe Life mobile apps, says the company may collect personal information about people from third parties, including consumer reporting agencies, social media sites and log-in plug-ins, and may combine it with what people provide directly. The notice lists "inferences from personal information that could create a profile about your preferences and characteristics" among the categories it collects.
American Income Life's Privacy Policy lists demographic data including income level, education and family or marital status, plus payment details, geolocation and profile inferences, among the personal information it collects. It says AIL may combine what people provide with data from consumer reporting agencies and, with consent, medical information from their medical professional for insurance purposes. Underwriting life and supplemental health insurance inherently involves health and financial data.
Globe Life Inc. is a Delaware insurance holding company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: GL) and files annual 10-K reports with the SEC. Its 2025 10-K names its primary insurance subsidiaries: Globe Life And Accident Insurance Company, American Income Life Insurance Company, Liberty National Life Insurance Company, Family Heritage Life Insurance Company of America and United American Insurance Company.
Globe Life's Privacy Policy Center maps each consumer brand to the legal entity that underwrites the policy, for example American Income Life to American Income Life Insurance Company and National Income Life to National Income Life Insurance Company. A policyholder can identify which subsidiary holds their data.
Globe Life's January 2025 SEC filing on its 2024 extortion incident says the stolen customer information came from databases "maintained by a small number of independent agency owners" who sell American Income Life policies. Policyholder and lead data are held outside the insurer's own systems, by independent agencies the company does not own.
On the positive side, the Globe Life Cookie Policy says visitors can opt out of some third-party partners' cookies through the industry opt-out page and Google's Analytics opt-out, and through the Global Privacy Control browser signal.
Globe Life's Online Privacy Notice says it does not sell California consumers' personal information. Its California disclosure does say the company may share, for cross-context behavioral advertising, telephone numbers, IP addresses, browsing and search history, geolocation, the insurance products or services a person has purchased, and inferences used to build consumer profiles. A separate opt-out covers sharing with third parties for their own marketing. It is handled by email request and, the notice says, honored "where feasible."
American Income Life's Privacy Policy discloses the same cross-context behavioral advertising sharing as its parent, covering telephone numbers, device and browsing data, geolocation, insurance products purchased and profile inferences. Under California's Shine the Light law, it also tells customers they may opt out of AIL sharing their personal information with third parties for those third parties' direct marketing.
In a June 2024 SEC filing, Globe Life disclosed that after an inquiry from a state insurance regulator it found vulnerabilities in access permissions and user identity management on one of its web portals. The company said those vulnerabilities likely resulted in unauthorized access to certain consumer and policyholder information, and that it removed external access to the portal.
Globe Life's amended SEC filing on its October 2024 incident confirms that an extortionist obtained the personal information of about 5,000 American Income Life customers and leads. That information included names, contact details and, in some cases, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health-related data and policy information, and some of it was passed to short sellers and plaintiffs' attorneys. Globe Life did not pay the extortion demand. Because it could not rule out wider access, it notified and offered credit monitoring to about 850,000 more people whose data sat in the same databases. It says it could not confirm whether their data was taken.
In Fuld v. American Income Life Insurance Company, No. 1:23-cv-01420 (S.D. Ind.), the plaintiff's memorandum supporting preliminary approval describes a $14 million non-reversionary fund. It would settle Telephone Consumer Protection Act Do Not Call claims over repeated telemarketing calls from AIL-affiliated agents to 49,695 consumers on the National Do Not Call Registry, whose numbers the memorandum says agents bought from an approved vendor after the consumers signed up for a free will kit online. The court granted preliminary approval on August 29, 2025. The memorandum notes that AIL denies any liability.
teiss reports that Globe Life and American Income Life agreed to pay $4.66 million to settle the class action over the 2024 data incident (In re American Income Life Insurance Co. and Globe Life Inc. Data Breach Litigation, No. 6:25-cv-00262, W.D. Tex.). The total covers up to $3.4 million in payments to class members plus attorneys' fees, and the deal includes two years of credit monitoring. The court-authorized notice says the defendants deny all wrongdoing. A settlement is not a finding of liability.
American Income Life's Privacy Policy says its sites use pixel tags to deliver advertising and to link data collected across a visitor's other devices. It says third-party advertisers and partners use cookies and web beacons to identify visitors and monitor their activity, and that the sites do not respond to Do Not Track signals from most browsers.
The Globe Life family's Cookie Policy says it uses Google Analytics and lets advertising partners place targeting cookies on its websites. It says those partners may use the cookies to build a profile of a visitor's interests and show ads on other sites, and lists Facebook's Open Graph among the technologies in use.