Allstate has been taking a bunch of TCPA hits lately related to the alleged use of illegal robocalls by its agents.

Now an Allstate-owned insurance marketer–National General Marketing–has been hit with a new TCPA class action alleging it made illegal funeral insurance services robocalls.

The suit–brought on behalf of consumer Stewart Smith–claims National General generates “leads” by making telemarketing calls to consumers who have never consented to receive their calls. The suit notes that National General has previously been sued related to telemarketing that is alleged to have violated the TCPA.

Smith alleges that despite the fact he was on the National DNC list he received repeated prerecorded robocalls with “exactly” the same. Moreover, despite TCPA regulations requiring marketing robocalls to disclose the identity of the caller, the suit alleges National General did not do so.

Apparently the calls were designed to drum up interest in funeral insurance.

The Plaintiff seeks to represent two classes of folks across the nation that received similar calls:

Robocall Class: All persons within the United States: (1) to whose cellular telephone
number, Defendant, or a third party on their behalf, placed a call using pre-record
messages (2) within the four years prior to the filing of the Complaint through trial.

National Do Not Call Registry Class: All persons in the United States who (1)
within four years prior to the commencement of this litigation until trial (2) received
two or more telemarketing call on their residential landline (3) from or on behalf of
Defendant (4) to a telephone number that was registered with the National Do Not
Call Registry (5) for more than 30 days at the time of each call.

You can read the complaint here: Allstate Nat Gen TCPA Complaint

A reminder, large direct-to-consumer marketers like Allstate (particularly those with repeated recent run ins with the TCPA) should reach out about joining the soon-to-be-formed (powerful) direct-to-consumer trade organization REACH (Responsible Entities Against Consumer Harassment)- which has pledged to stop 1 billion illegal robocalls a month through a focus on tighter compliance standards in the lead gen/purchase space. RESPONSIBLE lead buyers from numerous verticals have already pledged their support.

Either way, we’ll keep an eye on this case.