Marsh USA has filed a lawsuit against competitor Alliant Insurance Services, accusing the firm of unlawfully poaching critical commercial surety staff and clients.
New York-based Marsh has accused California-based Alliant of encouraging key commercial surety employees to violate their non-solicitation and confidentiality agreements, as well as unlawfully interfering with Marsh’s client relationships. Both firms rank among the largest insurance brokerages in the United States.
Marsh claims that Alliant sought to establish a commercial surety practice and deliberately targeted Glenn Pelletiere, its Northeast commercial surety leader. Pelletiere had spent nearly ten years at Marsh, where he developed a substantial surety portfolio anchored by four marquee clients.
Marsh stated that on January 24, 2025, when Glenn Pelletiere resigned to join Alliant, he assured the company he would not solicit any clients or employees. Yet, according to the complaint, just minutes after his departure, three key members of Marsh’s surety team—Colin Horgan, Madison Diaz, and Nicholas Manning—also resigned. Marsh alleges that each of them played an essential role in maintaining client relationships and were subject to one-year post-employment restrictions prohibiting the solicitation or servicing of Marsh clients, as well as the solicitation of fellow employees.
The complaint alleges that shortly after the employees resigned, efforts to solicit Marsh’s clients commenced. By March, one of the largest commercial surety clients from Pelletiere’s portfolio had transferred its business to Alliant.
Marsh calls this case “yet another chapter in Alliant’s execution of its corporate strategy of theft. Alliant does not build—it raids. And once again, it has raided a Marsh McLennan entity for a high-performing team, led by a key producer managing a substantial book of business, in deliberate violation of binding contractual restrictions and settled law.”
Marsh is seeking to enforce the restrictive covenants agreed to by its former employees, safeguard its confidential and trade secret information, and prevent both the employees and Alliant from soliciting additional accounts. The lawsuit also aims to put an end to what Marsh describes as "Alliant’s campaign of unfair competition." In addition to injunctive relief against the individuals and Alliant, Marsh is pursuing compensation for business losses, legal expenses, and punitive damages.
Marsh asserts in its latest complaint that "this raid is no outlier," alleging that Alliant has faced as many as 70 similar lawsuits involving comparable claims.
This is not the first legal dispute between the two companies. In December 2024, Marsh McLennan Agency (MMA) filed a lawsuit against Alliant asserting similar claims. The following month, a judge issued an order prohibiting Alliant from soliciting MMA clients. In May, MMA obtained a permanent injunction barring Alliant from soliciting certain "restricted" Marsh clients and from using confidential information. The injunction applies to Alliant, Johnny Osborne—a former producer at MMA’s Huntsville, Alabama office—and two members of his team, all of whom resigned simultaneously in December 2024 to join Alliant.
In that case, the judge determined that MMA was unequivocally entitled to a prohibitory injunction against Osborne and Alliant to prevent further erosion of client relationships, protect customer goodwill, and stop any additional use or disclosure of confidential information.
In the Osborne proceedings, Alliant opposed a restraining order as anti-competitive, relying on a prior case involving similar allegations between Marsh and Alliant. Alliant argued that court ruling concluded that the “types of restrictive covenants Marsh is seeking to enforce are unenforceable as a matter of law.” However, the judge dismissed that argument, finding that the case Alliant relied on is an “outlier” and not representative of the body of the law on such agreements. In fact, the judge added, New York courts will enforce a restrictive covenant “to the extent necessary to protect an employer’s relationships and goodwill.”
