Editorial: Time to Find a Fix for Poaching Suits
•February 16, 2026
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Companies Mentioned
Why It Matters
Litigation over broker poaching drains millions and threatens talent retention, while unresolved mobility rules risk client disruption and industry inefficiency.
Key Takeaways
- •Howden's mass hiring sparked wave of poaching lawsuits
- •Noncompete enforceability varies widely across U.S. states
- •Brokers claim client relationships are personally built, not firm-owned
- •Current contracts waste resources and ignore client interests
- •Tailored agreements could balance mobility with confidential data protection
Pulse Analysis
The insurance‑broking sector is confronting an unprecedented wave of litigation as firms scramble to protect client lists and revenue streams. Howden’s recent strategy of building a U.S. retail operation by hiring hundreds of producers from competitors has turned a routine recruiting battle into a courtroom marathon. These lawsuits illuminate a deeper structural flaw: employment contracts that treat brokers as interchangeable assets, ignoring the personal relationships that drive the business. As a result, firms are incurring multi‑million‑dollar legal fees and diverting senior management’s focus from growth initiatives.
Complicating the dispute is a patchwork of state rulings on non‑compete and non‑solicitation clauses. Some jurisdictions enforce strict restrictions, while others deem them unenforceable, leading to forum‑shopping and inconsistent outcomes. Brokers counter that their success stems from individual expertise and client trust, not merely the firm’s infrastructure. This tension raises a fundamental question about who truly owns a client relationship in a service‑driven industry. Ignoring the client’s perspective reduces them to tradable assets, eroding the trust that underpins brokerage services.
Industry leaders can break the litigation cycle by crafting nuanced, role‑specific agreements that protect genuine confidential information without stifling legitimate career mobility. Narrow, time‑bound nonsolicitation periods, clear data‑handling protocols, and transition clauses that prioritize client continuity can align incentives for both firms and brokers. Such tailored contracts would reduce legal exposure, preserve talent pipelines, and ultimately enhance client satisfaction—key drivers of long‑term profitability in the insurance brokerage market.
Editorial: Time to find a fix for poaching suits
The latest wave of lawsuits over alleged insurance broker poaching shows just how broken the sector’s approach to employee mobility has become.
Broker recruiting fights are nothing new, but the recent move by Howden to build a U.S. retail operation by hiring hundreds of producers from rival firms has pushed the issue into overdrive, triggering a rush to courthouses as former employers accuse departing staff of breaching nonsolicitation agreements and taking clients with them.
What makes this moment especially ironic is that some of the firms now crying foul built their own growth strategies on recruiting teams from competitors.
The result is an escalating cycle of lawsuits, counterclaims and settlements that burns through millions of dollars and management time. Meanwhile, the industry continues to sidestep the real question: How can brokers move freely between firms, as professionals in any competitive market should, while still protecting legitimate proprietary information?
The lawsuits paint the issue in black and white, but the reality is messier.
Brokerage leaders often argue that producers owe their success to their firms’ infrastructure, data, branding and support. Producers counter that they built their books through personal relationships, long hours and individual expertise, and that they often brought clients with them when they joined the firms they are now fighting with. Then come the allegations about downloading client lists or emailing confidential material before resigning. In an era of sophisticated monitoring tools, it’s hard not to wonder why anyone believes that sort of behavior will go unnoticed.
Complicating the issue further, courts and lawmakers across states take widely different views on the enforceability of nonsolicitation and noncompete clauses in employment contracts, adding fights over forum to the mix.
What’s largely missing from these disputes is the voice of the most important person in the process: the client.
If clients value a brokerage’s institutional resources, they can stay; if they value their individual broker, they should be able to maintain continuity of service when that broker moves. Treating clients as tradeable assets ignores the relationship-driven nature of the business.
All of this adds up to a staggering waste of time and resources in a service industry that still depends on its people.
Instead of reflexively turning to the courts, brokers who say they put clients first should rethink their approach to employee retention and recruitment. That means acknowledging workforce mobility as a reality and designing employment agreements that reflect that. They can include narrow but clear protections for truly confidential information, realistic nonsolicitation periods, fair transition agreements for brokerages and their clients, and tailored contracts where needed rather than boilerplate language for all employees.
Insurance broking has long been about expertise — both institutional and individual — relationships and trust. Until the industry aligns its employment contracts with that reality, the courtroom carousel will likely keep spinning.
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