Praise, an offer of unpaid leave, then a call during her approved time off
A pregnant insurance agent says she was fired weeks before her due date - soon after praise and an offer of maternity leave.
That is the story a former sales agent tells in a lawsuit filed July 20, 2026 in the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. She is suing Allstate Insurance Company, a Pittsburgh-area Allstate agency, an affiliated management company, and three individuals she says supervised her day-to-day work. Her claims fall under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), a federal law that requires covered employers to accommodate known limitations tied to pregnancy and childbirth.
She disclosed her pregnancy before starting, the complaint says. During hiring, she told a staffing recruiter she was pregnant and would need prenatal visits and time off for childbirth. She says she was reassured the pregnancy "wouldn't be an issue" and that the company would "accommodate [her] as best they can."
The early months were productive, according to the filing. She started in February 2025, passed her Pennsylvania property and casualty licensing exam, and was selling policies by late March. The complaint says she beat the general benchmark of twenty items sold in both April and May, and that a manager sent encouraging notes along the way - "Look at you go!! Awesome job," "You should be proud of yourself," and, less than three weeks before she was fired, "Good job!!"
The complaint also describes an early exchange about maternity leave. It points to an April 29, 2025 message relayed from an HR manager saying the company was "more than happy to support [her] with unpaid maternity leave" and asking how many weeks she wanted so it could "plan accordingly." She says she asked for roughly six.
The filing alleges her treatment changed once her pregnancy became visible. It claims one of the owners began turning up at her desk several times a day, and that when she raised it, the complaint says a manager dismissed her concern - the behavior was "normal" and "that's just how he is." The complaint also says computer and call-routing failures interfered with her calls that June.
The end came on June 23, 2025. The worker was on previously approved time off for a wedding when a manager called to say she was being let go, the complaint states. The manager allegedly said she disagreed with the decision but had to carry out the owners' directive. A few days later, the filing says, the worker received an email listing production targets she had never seen before.
For HR teams, the allegations center on process. The complaint alleges no written warnings, no performance reviews, no improvement plan, and no notice her job was at risk - and then a goals document that surfaced only after termination. In pregnancy and accommodation disputes, those records, and their timing, often decide the case. The worker also says the company put a leave offer in writing and then fired her before she could take it, the kind of sequence the PWFA was built to address.
She is asking for reinstatement or front pay, back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, and attorney's fees.
The allegations have not been tested, and no court has ruled on the claims.
