Alliant Insurance Services has become the latest broker to sue Howden US, accusing the firm of deploying a smash-and-grab strategy to pull teams from competitors and disrupt established client relationships.
The lawsuit, filed in state court in Harris County, Texas, also names three former Alliant employees – Jessie Guerrero, Christina Murphy, and Sunnie Fairburn – all of whom worked on Alliant’s energy and marine team.
According to court filings, Alliant alleges Howden US orchestrated the trio’s coordinated resignations using a playbook consistent with what it calls a broader attack strategy aimed at rival brokers.
The complaint claims the former employees breached contractual obligations tied to non-competition, trade secrets, and the protection of confidential information.
Howden US launched its U.S. retail brokerage business in August, led by CEO Mike Parrish. Since then, the firm has drawn a string of lawsuits from major competitors, including Aon, Marsh, WTW, and Brown & Brown.
Marsh has pursued multiple actions, including one suit against Parrish and several former Marsh employees, along with a separate filing targeting another group of ex-employees now working at Howden US.
Marsh USA has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, accusing four former Florida-based executives of orchestrating a large-scale employee and client defection to Howden US Services, a newcomer aiming to establish a U.S. presence.
According to the complaint, the alleged scheme began in early 2025, when Howden attempted to enter the U.S. market by acquiring Risk Strategies.
After that effort failed, Howden allegedly shifted its strategy to hiring top personnel and acquiring clients directly from Marsh and its affiliates (see TOP Global Insurance & Reinsurance Brokers).
The suit names Michael Parrish, Marsh’s Florida zone leader, along with Giselle Lugones, Robert Lynn, and Julie Layton.
Lugones and Lynn held regional sales leadership roles, while Layton oversaw risk management out of Marsh’s Miami office.
Alliant said it had confronted Guerrero about industry chatter suggesting he was considering a move to Howden, an allegation he denied at the time. Despite that, Guerrero resigned alongside Murphy and Fairburn on Dec. 2, 2025.
The lawsuit alleges the three accessed, renamed, deleted, and captured screenshots of hundreds of files tied to Alliant clients before departing. Alliant further claims client departures followed rumours circulating in the market that its energy property team had collapsed, rumours the broker believes the defendants helped spread.
The complaint also points to at least one instance in which one of the defendants allegedly attempted to recruit another Alliant employee after leaving the firm.
A court last week granted Alliant’s request for a temporary restraining order, barring Guerrero, Murphy, Fairburn, and Howden US from using or disclosing any Alliant confidential information.
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Jan. 16.
The dispute echoes earlier litigation involving Alliant. Around this time last year, a federal judge extended an order preventing three Alliant employees from soliciting or contacting clients of Marsh & McLennan Agency, after MMA accused Alliant of orchestrating employee poaching and client solicitation tied to those hires.
According to Beinsure, Howden US told a Massachusetts judge that the recent wave of departures from rival Brown & Brown had nothing to do with theft or conspiracy. According to Howden, the exits were driven entirely by Brown’s own treatment of its people.
The response came after Brown & Brown sued Howden US and dozens of former employees in Massachusetts Superior Court, alleging trade-secret theft, contract breaches, and unfair competition.
The Florida-based broker asked the court for a temporary restraining order, seeking to halt what it describes as a coordinated raid.
In its Dec. 26 filing, submitted on behalf of Howden US and 28 individual defendants, the company rejected the narrative outright. The story, it said, isn’t a “shocking pirate raid.”
It’s about employees pushed so far by poor management and below-market compensation that they were prepared to resign without new jobs lined up.
Howden says it simply offered them work and explicitly instructed them not to take confidential information.
Client movement, Howden argued, was inevitable. In broking, clients follow brokers. That’s how the market functions.
