CEO Andy Noga of GuideOne Mutual Insurance Company has been accused of sexual discrimination against Mark Groenheide, who served as Senior Vice President of Specialty for the same company. GuideOne Mutual Insurance Company is an insurance company headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa. It is licensed in all 50 states and serves more than 51,000 commercial policyholders.

Mark Groenheide, the charging party, who is openly bisexual, served as GuideOne’s Senior Vice President of Specialty from October 2019 until his termination on February 15, 2022.

When Mark was hired, he brought with him an extensive book of business and began generating massive revenue for GuideOne, which had previously been focused on church underwriting and had been struggling for some time. It’s reported that GuideOne’s specialty business was virtually non-existent in 2019, and Mark single-handedly built it out into one of the most profitable sectors of the company, generating over $400M in premium during his tenure.

Given his success, he was highly regarded by members of the senior leadership team and the board, including the CEO of GuideOne, Jessica Snyder, the COO, Michelle Glasl, and its general counsel, Andy Noga who frequently lauded his work during Board meetings and other internal and external events.

Although Mark has identified as bisexual for many years, his sexual orientation was not known within the company because he was married to a woman at the time of his hire and he kept his personal life, including his sexual orientation, private in professional settings.

By fall 2021, Mark had come to terms with the fact that his sexual orientation was known within the company and no longer attempted to hide it. Therefore, when one of his clients invited him to a gala for the Log Cabin Republicans, a branch of the Republican Party committed to supporting LGBTQ+ rights, he accepted and attended.

Mr. Noga’s formerly friendly demeanor and rapport with Mark allegedly turned icy at this point, and as Mark and others in the senior leadership team observed, Mr. Noga became progressively more disrespectful and demeaning towards Mark.

At a board meeting at the Des Moines Country Club shortly after Mark returned from the gala, Mr. Noga referred to the event as “you and your fag friends who like Trump” and allegedly called Miami, where Mark often traveled for business, “gay country.”

A couple of weeks later, during a client dinner at Flemings Steak House with Mr. Noga, Ms. Snyder, Ms. Glasl, and their spouses, Mr. Noga allegedly railed against Mark, telling him that his sexuality and morals were not aligned with the company’s founding principles and that his “gay shit” would not be tolerated any longer.

During this tirade, which was witnessed by Rick Snyder, Jessica Snyder’s husband, among others, Mr. Noga allegedly became physically aggressive, at one point grabbing Mark’s arm, and called him a “faggot”.

One week later, Mark was notified that he was being placed under investigation. It’s alleged that the investigation was run entirely by Mr. Noga, not HR, which typically has always been responsible for employee investigations in the past. It’s alleged that Mark was never told explicitly what the charges against him were or who made them, although through conversations with Ms. Snyder he came to understand that he had been accused by two subordinates, Nick Batten and Adam Berger, of exceeding his Letter of Authority, failing to secure reinsurance on certain accounts, and submitting improper expenses.

On December 27, 2021, Ms. Snyder insisted that Mr. Noga cease all involvement with the investigation, and appointed Sam Waters, Assistant General Counsel, to serve as the point person for Faegre Drinker, the outside law firm Mr. Noga had hired to conduct the investigation earlier that month. At that point, Mr. Noga and Nick Klinefeldt, the Faegre Drinker attorney investigating Mark, went to the board behind Ms. Snyder’s back and claimed that she had been attempting to interfere with the investigation.

Based on this information, the board decided to recuse Ms. Snyder, who was not allowed to participate further in the investigation, despite having critical evidence that would have allegedly exonerated Mark from several of the charges against him.

Mark eventually filed a formal complaint against Mr. Noga in mid-January 2022, first through the company’s anonymous hotline and subsequently in writing. His complaint was explicit about Mr. Noga’s bias against him because of his sexual orientation and detailed the homophobic epithets Mr. Noga had made both at the Des Moines Country Club and at the Flemings dinner.

The company ultimately terminated Mark based on the charges brought against him. As a result of his termination, Mark has suffered significant lost income, including the denial of a six-figure bonus payment which was due just weeks after his termination.

Andy Noga’s conduct has also caused Mark to suffer emotional distress, humiliation, loss of enjoyment in life, inconvenience, and other pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs. Mark now seeks punitive damages due to Mr. Noga’s conduct throughout the entire ordeal.