Florida-headquartered Brown & Brown, one of the largest insurance brokerages in the country, this week filed a federal lawsuit
against a former vice president, charging him with secretly setting up a competing business and poaching clients.
The lawsuit in the federal court system’s Middle District of Florida contends Westyn Swenson, based in Texas, conspired with Natha
n Gilbert Insurance Agency and Legacy Insurance Group to lure at least three doze
n clients from Brown & Brown. It was all in violation of Swenson’s non-compete employment agreements, the complaint alleges.
The defendants have not yet filed an answer to Brown & Brown’s complaint. It’s
the latest poaching lawsuit in an industry that has seen a rise in those types of leg
al actions in recent years. At the same time, no-poach employee agreements have
been successfully challeng
ed in court in some states. In 2023, the New York Attorney General’s office for
ced property-casualty and title insurance companies to pay $13.75 million in fines for their “anti-worker” non-poaching agreements.
In the Brown & Brown case, the trouble began in 2021, when Swenson worked at Hillco West Texas insurance agency, where he agreed n
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ot to solicit Hillco’s clients should he leave the firm, the suit contends. Secretly, though, Swenson had formed Swenson Capital, which Brown
& Brown said “was founded for the purpose of competing with Hillco while still employed thereby.”
The publicly traded Brown & Brown, based in Dayton Beach and with offices around the country, acquired Hillco in 2024. Swenso
n went to work for B&B as vice president for sales, and he signed a new employment agreement.
A few months later, Swenson left B&B and began working with Legacy Insurance Group, which has offices in Florida and Texas. N
athan Gilbert runs his own agency in Iowa Falls, Texas, which is a branch of Legacy Insurance, according to the agency’s website.
“Since beginning work with the Legacy Defendants under the guise of the Swenson Defendants … Swenson has solicited and accepted work involving no less than thirty-seven customer i
nsurance policies he had previously serviced on behalf of Brown & Brown, using misappropriated confidential information, to benefit the Legacy Defendants,” the complaint reads.
The suit argues that the defendants used Swenson Capital “as a smokescreen for their business relationship.” The complaint includes a Google Maps Street View image of the purported address of Swenson Capital, which appears to be a vacant lot in Nocona, Texas.
