Aon sues Alliant for ‘unlawful raid’ of 26 execs for ‘abrupt entry’ into reinsurance

Global re/insurance broker  Aon has filed a lawsuit against its rival  Alliant, accusing it of orchestrating a move to poach 26 employees “unlawfully” from its facultative reinsurance practice as well as stealing confidential information and trade secrets, in order to make an “abrupt entry” into the reinsurance brokerage market with  Alliant Re. Aon alleges that Alliant has taken approximately 32% of Aon’s facultative reinsurance group and is attacking the casualty group “at all levels”.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that beginning on April 19, Allliant Insurance Services used its “illicit playbook” to premeditate an “unlawful raid” on Aon’s facultative reinsurance group, taking more than two dozen employees as well as business from Aon’s top US facultative reinsurance clients.

According to Aon, Alliant’s intention was “steal Aon’s US facultative reinsurance broking business to gain entry into the reinsurance market and jumpstart the launch of Alliant Re” – the company’s new facultative reinsurance broking business.

It called Alliant's entry into the reinsurance brokerage world as “abrupt”, and at “Aon’s expense”, stating that its rival “did not previously have the capabilities, staffing, or clients” to launch an entirely new line of business.

“Alliant publicly announced the launch of Alliant Re – it’s new facultative reinsurance broking business staffed, almost exclusively, with Aon’s former employees – to actively compete against Aon in the business of facultative reinsurance broking,” Aon said in the filing. “Alliant’s intention was never to compete fairly. Instead, it conspired with the Former Employees to unlawfully appropriate from the inside-out what Aon assembled at great effort and expense over many years.”

Aon also claimed that Alliant went as far as stealing Aon’s branding by using the name "Reinsurance Solutions" for its new business. Aon emphasised that the senior leaders who were poached had been “only days prior a critical part” of its business, having built industry relationships and established trust under Aon’s name.

The Greg Case-led broker has stated that Alliant is showing no signs of ceasing the raid and is still trying to “wrongfully poach” key reinsurance senior executives from Aon, even after the complaint was filed.

To date, Aon said Alliant has poached approximately 32% of its facultative reinsurance group, including “attacking Aon’s facultative casualty group at all levels”.

Additionally, Aon claims, Alliant took Aon’s entire property team in Chicago, Illinois (5 employees; plus 1 additional employee in New York). Alliant also took two reinsurance Client Service Advocates who serviced these groups.

Aon believes the timing of the resignations between April 19-25 – just days prior to May 1 renewals – is “not coincidental”.

“Defendants were not subtle in coordinating the near simultaneous resignations of the 26 Aon employees (who all resigned in a matter of a week, ‘effective immediately’),” Aon argued in the filing. “In fact, Medlicott, O’Brien, and N. Ambriano resigned, “effectively immediately,” within a matter of hours of each other on April 19, 2023, and by the next business day, industry publications were already reporting their hirings at Alliant,” it noted.

According to Aon, right after joining Alliant, the former employees began “directly targeting and soliciting Aon’s top facultative reinsurance clients”.

“Alliant Re would not exist but for Defendants’ theft of Aon’s employees, clients, and information that Aon developed over decades,” Aon claimed.

Some of the individuals implicated in the lawsuit filed over the poaching controversy include Nicholas Ambriano, Louis Ambriano, Juan Aponte, Owen Buscaglia, Andrew Masse, Rachel McAllister, Christopher Medlicott, Michael O’Brien, and Robert Osborne.

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