Risk Strategies says two former managing directors and their new employer, Marshall & Sterling, orchestrated a coordinated departure that led customers and support staff to leave within days. The suit adds a smaller Connecticut chapter to Brown & Brown’s broader litigation campaign over producer defections and post-employment restrictions.
A smaller case in a larger brokerage fight
Risk Strategies, the Boston-based brokerage that is now a subsidiary of Brown & Brown, has sued former Managing Directors Tim Tracy and Sheena Tracy, along with Marshall & Sterling Enterprises, in federal court in Connecticut, alleging a coordinated effort to move customers, staff, and revenue from the company.
According to the April 2 complaint, the Tracys resigned on March 20. Within days, Risk Strategies says, more than 15 accounts representing nearly $900,000 in revenue had submitted notices of broker of record changes, moving their business away from the firm. The company also alleges that two employees who worked directly with the Tracys resigned the same day and followed them to Marshall & Sterling.
Though smaller than Brown & Brown’s more prominent litigation against Howden, the Connecticut case rests on a familiar theory: that what looked like routine producer movement was instead a coordinated raid on customer relationships and support staff protected by contract.
For Massachusetts readers, that broader backdrop matters. Agency Checklists previously reported on Brown & Brown’s larger legal dispute with Howden, USA in Brown & Brown Lost $23 Million Due To Howden Holiday Poaching, which described the parent company’s claim that over 200 coordinated December 2025 defections cost it about $23 million in annual revenue.
The dispute traces back to a 2019 acquisition
Risk Strategies says the current fight has its roots in its 2019 acquisition of Gerard B. Tracy Associates, an employee benefits brokerage owned by the Tracys’ father. According to the complaint, Risk Strategies paid substantial consideration for the business’s goodwill and customer relationships, then retained Tim and Sheena Tracy as Managing Directors to help transition and develop that book of business on behalf of the buyer.
That acquisition history is central to the lawsuit. Risk Strategies alleges it did not merely employ the Tracys; it bought the customer relationships they later serviced.
The complaint says the Tracys had direct relationships with numerous customers and access to detailed nonpublic information, including customers’ insurance needs, renewal dates, pricing structures, and strategic plans.
Non-solicitation agreements at the center of the case
Risk Strategies says the Tracys renewed their obligations in June 2025 by signing Non-Solicitation and Confidentiality Agreements. Under those agreements, the company says, they were barred for two years after leaving from taking a series of actions involving customers and employees.
The restrictions cited in the complaint and attached agreement include prohibitions on:
- “solicit[ing] or accept[ing] the business or patronage of any Customer” for another provider;
- “divert[ing], entic[ing], or otherwise tak[ing] away” customer business;
- “solicit[ing] or induc[ing] any Customer to terminate or reduce its relationship with the Company”; and
- “recruit[ing], solicit[ing] or induc[ing]” company employees or agents to leave.
The agreement also broadly defines confidential information to include nonpublic client and prospective client information, including contact details, and requires employees to return company documents and materials upon termination. It further provides for injunctive relief and states that, if commissions or fees are earned in violation of the agreement, the employee must pay, or cause the new employer to pay, 80% of those disqualified fees to the company.
Another provision may become important as the case develops: the agreement states that it is governed by “the laws of the state in which Employee last worked for the Company.”
Risk Strategies alleges that resignations were coordinated
In the complaint, Risk Strategies alleges the Tracys resigned on March 20 to join Marshall & Sterling and that Meghann Dockum and Nina Garland, who worked directly with them, also resigned that same day. The company alleges the departures were coordinated and says all four are now working for Marshall & Sterling in substantially similar roles.
The speed of the customer movement is a major part of the company’s case.
Risk Strategies alleges that, shortly after the resignations, it began receiving reports that customers were following the Tracys to Marshall & Sterling. It says many of those customers openly admitted they were leaving to follow the departing producers. The complaint also alleges that several customers broke ongoing client service agreements in order to move their accounts.
In a March 30 cease-and-desist letter to Marshall & Sterling, Risk Strategies’ counsel said the four employees resigned in “coordinated fashion” and that broker of record change letters began arriving “in many instances before Risk Strategies had even advised those customers of the Employee’s departure.”
In separate demand letters to Tim Tracy and Sheena Tracy, the company used similar language, alleging the resignations occurred in “coordinated and simultaneous fashion” and asserting that the rapid arrival of broker of record letters “only could have occurred through your advance notice and solicitation of these customers.”
What the lawsuit claims was taken or disrupted
Risk Strategies’ allegations fall into three practical categories familiar to agency owners and buyers of books of business:
- Customer business: Customers were solicited to move their accounts.
- Support staff: Employees working with the Tracys were recruited to resign and follow them.
- Confidential information: Customer contact details and other nonpublic information were retained or used for competitive purposes.
The complaint asserts six counts: breach of contract, two counts of tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with existing business relations, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment. It seeks injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees.
Why Massachusetts insurance professionals should watch this case
For Agency Checklists’s insurance readers, the Connecticut case is interesting as a reflection of how agency buyers, like Brown & Brown, any agency buyer must consider how it will protect the expirations and goodwill that made up most of the value purchased.
The allegations echo recurring issues in producer-defection litigation: whether customer outreach began before departure, whether support staff was recruited in violation of agreement terms, whether confidential information moved with the departing producers, and how much protection a buyer of goodwill can realistically expect when key relationship managers leave.
At this stage, those claims remain allegations. The Connecticut complaint sets out Risk Strategies’ version of events, not findings by the court. But the case is another reminder that in agency acquisitions, the value assigned to goodwill and customer relationships often ends up being tested not only in the marketplace, but in litigation over the contracts meant to protect them.
