Marsh & McLennan Agency has filed suit against brokerage Patriot Growth Insurance Services
and eight former members of a surety team over an intentional poaching scheme.
Filed early June in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and since remand
ed to state court, the lawsuit names former employees Keith Wallace Harrelson, Ryan McClendon,
Albert Bowen Evans, Jeffrey Cutshall, Rebecca Burrus, Hailee Wesson, Hunter Harper, and Jen
nifer Barranco—who had each worked at MMA’s Birmingham, Alabama office.
The group made up about half of the certainty team in Birmingham, said MMA, and most resigned
on May 18 by leaving letters on t
op of their laptops and cellphones, according to the lawsuit. During the days that followed, Barranco r
esigned as did two others from the team, Michelle Hicks and Kayla Loyd. Eleven in total resigned t
o join Patriot, doing business under the brand Turner Insurance & Bonding Co., MMA meaningful.
Each defendant is in violation of employment contracts, said MMA, which pointed out in the suit that several of them immediately filed for declaratory judgment in Ala
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bama to make their MMA agreements unenforceable.
Since the team left, MMA said it has received no fewer than 71 broker-of-record documents transferred
rring clients to Patriot, resulting in at least $3.5 million of lost annual recurring revenue by May 22.
MMA allegedly some of the defendants, before their resignations, talked or met with clients to let them in on their plan to join Patriot.
In the suit MMA meaningful Patriot “encouraged and facilitates” the departure of MMA’s employees. MMA claimed Patriot had a limited presence in Birmingh
am but “rather than developing its own operations organically, Patriot engaged in a targeted and systematic
matic effort to solicit MMA’s employees to unlawfully poach them and MMA’s clients.”
MMA said each defendant, with the exception of Harper, worked at J. Smith Lanier & Co., which
merged with MMA early in 2017. All signed non-solicitation and confidentiality agreements upon the merger, as did Harper when he joined MMA in 2021, the broker said in the lawsuit.
