Brown & Brown Lawsuits: Howden, AssuredPartners, and Florida Law

Brown & Brown, Inc., the Daytona Beach-based insurance brokerage, has built a decade-long record of suing former executives and the firms that hire them. The three Brown and Brown lawsuits that define this pattern are the AssuredPartners fight that ended in a $20 million settlement in 2017, the Foundation Risk Partners case the company lost and paid to settle in 2026, and the ongoing Howden Group litigation over what Brown & Brown has called “the most brazen corporate raid in the history of the insurance brokerage industry.”¹

The AssuredPartners Case and Its $20 Million Settlement

Jim Henderson, a Brown & Brown executive since 1985 who had risen to vice chairman, left around 2011. Tom Riley, a 21-year veteran and chief acquisition officer, followed in January 2012. Together they launched AssuredPartners in Lake Mary, Florida, backed by $250 million from Chicago private equity firm GTCR, and recruited three other former Brown & Brown employees: Eric Anderson, Stanley Kinnett, and Paul Vredenburg.²

Brown & Brown sued in March 2012, alleging violations of non-compete agreements, misappropriation of trade secrets, and improper recruiting of company personnel. The parties settled later that year on terms that barred AssuredPartners from hiring or contacting Brown & Brown employees for 18 months, from soliciting Brown & Brown clients until March 1, 2013, and from approaching agencies on Brown & Brown’s acquisition target list for six months to a year. AssuredPartners also returned confidential materials and paid an undisclosed sum.²

The peace collapsed. In June 2016, Brown & Brown filed a second suit against AssuredPartners, Henderson, Riley, and additional former employees, alleging renewed breaches of the restrictive covenants through hiring and customer solicitation. In October 2016, Circuit Judge Dennis Craig issued an injunction, finding the defendants had violated agreements that restricted them from soliciting Brown & Brown accounts or recruiting its staff for two years.³

The case resolved in March 2017. AssuredPartners paid Brown & Brown $20 million, which the company described as a record settlement. There was no admission of wrongdoing. AssuredPartners was also barred from hiring Brown & Brown employees in the Daytona Beach, Orlando, and Seminole and Orange County areas for 18 months, with a six-month national prohibition.⁴³ Henderson told reporters that the individuals involved continued to work at AssuredPartners and called the $20 million “worth it” relative to their value.

The Foundation Risk Partners Case Brown & Brown Lost

The second wave came from Brown & Brown’s own retail division. Charlie Lydecker, its former president, left in July 2016. Retail CFO Tom Tinsley also departed. They were joined by former Daytona Beach profit center leader Alan Florez; former CFO Cory Walker, who had retired in 2014; former senior vice president Tony Grippa; and New Jersey-based producer Ben Barbieri. They incorporated Foundation Risk Partners in January 2017, with Lydecker as CEO.⁵

Brown & Brown sued in October 2018 in the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court for Volusia County. The complaint alleged the defendants had met at Tinsley’s home in August or September 2015 to plan a competing agency designed to “absorb” Brown & Brown’s customers and staff, used prepaid “burner phones” to avoid an electronic trail, and had current vice president Austin Brownlee record a private conversation between chairman J. Hyatt Brown and another executive at Lydecker’s instigation. Brown & Brown accused the group of stealing trade secrets including a document titled “The First 100 Days Manual” and sought $145 million in damages, an injunction, and forfeiture of any gains from the alleged theft.⁵⁶

The defendants said Brown & Brown was trying to stifle competition and retaliate against executives pushed out during internal disputes. They noted Foundation Risk was not formed until nearly a year after Lydecker and Tinsley had left, that Brown & Brown had never required noncompete agreements — only 24-month non-solicitation covenants and confidentiality agreements — and that they had honored those obligations. They also argued that documents Brown & Brown labeled trade secrets had been made public when the company deposited them with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2012.⁷⁶

After four and a half years and 28 counts across two related cases, Judge Dennis Craig ruled against Brown & Brown. On December 6, 2022, he entered final judgment for Foundation Risk founders Lydecker, Florez, and Barbieri, denying all $145 million in claims. The court found insufficient credible evidence, ruled the defendants had not solicited employees or accounts or used confidential information, and found Brown & Brown had no legitimate business interest in a particular acquisition (Corporate Synergies Group) at issue in the case.⁸

The court reserved jurisdiction to award attorney’s fees and costs to the defendants, and in December 2022 ordered Brown & Brown to pay. Brown & Brown appealed. In June 2026, the parties settled with Brown & Brown making what Foundation Risk described as a “multi-seven-figure-dollar payment.” FRP chief legal officer Tom Leek called the original complaint “a lawsuit in search of a claim” and said the settlement was accepted “to avoid further meritless appeals.”⁹¹⁰ A case Brown & Brown opened as the aggressor ended with the company paying its former executives.

The Howden Group Litigation

Howden Group, founded in London in 1994 by David Howden, launched its U.S. retail broking business on August 4, 2025, under CEO Mike Parrish, a former Marsh executive. Its vice chairman was Jim Hays, founder of Hays Group, which Brown & Brown had acquired in 2018.¹¹¹²

On December 18, 2025, roughly 200 Brown & Brown employees resigned simultaneously, many from New England offices in Dedham and Quincy, Massachusetts. Brown & Brown’s complaint described a “secret, simultaneous, no-advance notice, mass employee raid” timed over the Hanukkah and Christmas holiday weekend to inflict maximum competitive harm and delay judicial relief. The company alleged Howden used large bonuses and salaries to recruit top performers and cited text messages instructing employees to submit resignations by December 19.¹³ Approximately 275 former employees ultimately joined Howden, taking customer accounts representing an estimated $23 million in annual revenue.¹⁴

The Massachusetts Case

Brown & Brown filed a verified complaint on December 22, 2025, in Suffolk Superior Court’s Business Litigation Session, case number 2584-CV-03548, naming Howden US Services LLC and 28 former employees. The suit alleged trade secret theft, breach of confidentiality and non-solicitation agreements, breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference, and unfair competition, seeking an injunction, attorney’s fees, and monetary damages including punitive damages.¹⁵¹³

On December 29, 2025, Judge Debra Squires-Lee issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the defendants from recruiting current Brown & Brown employees or soliciting its insurance customers.¹⁶ In May 2026, Justice Kenneth Salinger denied Brown & Brown’s motion to broaden the order to cover customers who left after December 29 regardless of their connection to the individual defendants. Salinger also denied Howden’s motion to dismiss, ruling that Brown & Brown had “plausibly alleged claims, including breach of contract, aiding and abetting breaches of fiduciary duty.”¹⁷ The case remains active, with Brown & Brown alleging ongoing violations of the restraining order.

The Minnesota Case

A parallel proceeding developed in Minnesota around the legacy Hays Companies operation. About 40 Minnesota staff resigned to join Howden. On May 7, 2026, Hennepin County District Court Judge Thomas Conley granted a temporary restraining order, finding Brown & Brown had shown irreparable harm and a likelihood of success on the merits. The order barred 16 former employees from soliciting customers or recruiting staff and required them to honor confidentiality agreements tied to their Hays Companies employment. Conley did allow Howden employees to continue servicing clients who had already transitioned between December 2025 and May 2026, provided they logged all work performed.¹⁸¹²

Brown & Brown executives have said Howden’s departures cost the company customer accounts representing roughly $31 million in annual revenue, with $10 million of that lost in the first quarter of 2026 alone.¹⁸ On a January 27, 2026, earnings call, CEO J. Powell Brown described Howden’s actions as a “highly coordinated plan to rip entire teams from its competitors, taking information and customers in the process.”¹⁹ Howden has responded that the former employees left because of “mistreatment” at Brown & Brown.¹⁴

Other Brokers Suing Howden

Brown & Brown is not the only major broker in litigation with Howden. By mid-2026, at least four others had filed similar claims:

Marsh filed an initial lawsuit on July 29, 2025, over the departure of four Florida executives including Howden US CEO Mike Parrish, followed by a second suit in November 2025. Courts granted preliminary injunctions.
Aon sued after the departure of Managing Director Anthony Rampersaud and others in November 2025, won a preliminary injunction in December 2025, and settled with Howden in April 2026.
Alliant filed suit in Harris County, Texas, in December 2025 over the departure of an energy property team, alleging a “smash-and-grab” strategy. A temporary restraining order was granted in January 2026.
Willis Towers Watson accused Howden of “coast-to-coast raids” involving large-scale team departures.

The suits share a common pattern: systematic raiding of entire teams, misappropriation of confidential data and client lists, and breaches of fiduciary duty and non-solicitation agreements.¹ Howden has framed its U.S. entry as talent-driven growth, telling the market it offers top brokers “the freedom to do what’s best for their clients.”²⁰

Why Florida Law Drives This Strategy

Brown & Brown’s litigation approach rests on Florida’s statutory framework for restrictive covenants, codified in Section 542.335 of the Florida Statutes. It is one of the most employer-friendly regimes in the country. Courts must construe restrictive covenants in favor of the employer’s interests and are explicitly prohibited from considering the hardship a non-compete imposes on a former employee. Once an employer shows that a restraint protects a legitimate business interest — such as trade secrets, confidential information, or substantial customer relationships — the burden shifts to the employee to prove the restriction overbroad or unnecessary.²¹

That framework does not always travel. In Brown & Brown, Inc. v. Johnson, the New York Court of Appeals refused to enforce the Florida choice-of-law provision in a Brown & Brown employment agreement, calling Florida’s approach “truly obnoxious” to New York public policy because it barred consideration of employee hardship. The court applied New York’s three-prong test instead, which requires a non-compete to be no greater than necessary, impose no undue hardship, and not injure the public.²¹ That tension shapes how Brown & Brown’s covenants hold up in multi-state disputes, including the current Howden cases in Massachusetts and Minnesota.

What the Track Record Shows

Across more than a decade, Brown & Brown’s willingness to sue has produced very different results. AssuredPartners generated a $20 million recovery and demonstrated that the company would pursue departing executives to a settlement. Foundation Risk Partners ended the other way, with Brown & Brown paying its former executives after a judge found the company’s claims lacked credible evidence. The Howden litigation is still early: temporary restraining orders have been granted in both Massachusetts and Minnesota, but no trial date has been set, and Howden has continued growing its U.S. operation to more than 1,000 employees across 50 states.²⁰

1
Insurance Business Magazine. The Brokerage Industry’s Litigation Epidemic
2
Daytona Beach News-Journal. Brown & Brown Settles With Former Executives
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Daytona Beach News-Journal. Brown & Brown Gets Record $20 Million Settlement With Rival
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Brown & Brown Investor Relations. Brown & Brown Settles Lawsuit Against Former Employees and AssuredPartners
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Daytona Beach News-Journal. Brown & Brown Sues Former Execs, Claims Betrayal
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Berger Singerman. Legal War Escalates Between Brown & Brown and Foundation Risk
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Daytona Beach News-Journal. Ex-Employees Refute Brown & Brown Betrayal Accusations
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Berger Singerman. Berger Singerman Represents FRP Founding Partners in Court Victory Over Brown & Brown
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Foundation Risk Partners. Brown & Brown Agrees to Pay FRP a Multi-Seven-Figure Settlement
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Daytona Beach News-Journal. Brown & Brown Settles Legal Battle With Crosstown Rival FRP
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Insurance Business Magazine. Howden Reveals US Retail Business Despite Marsh Lawsuit
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Insurance Business Magazine. Brown & Brown Wins TRO Against Howden
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Insurance Journal. Brown & Brown Files Lawsuit Against Howden and Former Employees
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Insurance Journal. Brown & Brown CEO Addresses Howden Dispute
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Agency Checklists. Brown & Brown Lost $23 Million Due to Howden Holiday Poaching
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Daytona Beach News-Journal. Brown & Brown Wins First Round in Legal Battle With British Insurer
17
Business Insurance. Court Denies Motions by Brown & Brown and Howden in Broker Raid Case
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Insurance Journal. Brown & Brown Wins TRO in Minnesota Against Howden
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Insurance Business Magazine. Brown & Brown CEO Hits Out Against Rival Broker Over Poaching
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Howden Group. Our Story
21
New York Courts. Brown & Brown v. Johnson