It’s common for brokers to go to court alleging that a rival unlawfully poached staff and clients, but Marsh and Alliant had a series of disputes last year, with the world’s largest broker objecting to the recruitment strategies of the fifth-largest.
In February, Marsh McLennan Agency sued Alliant and some former employees in Bend, Oregon, who had joined the Marsh middle-market unit through its 2021 purchase of PayneWest Insurance.
According to Marsh, the team took more than 30 clients to Alliant in breach of their employment contracts. Later in the year, a New York court partially dismissed the suit on jurisdictional grounds, allowing some of the claims to proceed.
The story detailing the suit was the most-read risk management-related story on Business Insurance’s website in 2025.
But the disputes between Marsh and Alliant, which to the ire of its competitors has a long history of expanding by hiring teams from other brokers, didn’t end there.
Other disagreements included a July lawsuit in which Marsh lambasted its rival’s alleged “corporate strategy of theft” after Alliant hired away some Marsh surety executives. The case is pending in New York federal court.
In August, Marsh & McLennan Agency alleged that several brokers from its Beaverton, Oregon, office breached their nonsolicitation agreements when several clients followed them to Alliant. A New York court issued a partial preliminary injunction in the case earlier this month.
No. 2 most-read story.
Based in New York, Stephen Freeman is a Senior Editor at Trending Insurance News. Previously he has worked for Forbes and The Huffington Post. Steven is a graduate of Risk Management at the University of New York.