Did Howden Just Stage the Greatest Talent Heist in Insurance History?

Over the span of 48 hours last week, insurance brokerage Howden allegedly poached ~200 employees from competitor Brown & Brown.

Not spread out over months. Not a slow trickle of LinkedIn announcements.

Two. Nights.

The target: Brown & Brown's Hays Companies employee benefits division — which B&B acquired in 2018 for what was then their biggest deal in 75 years.

The twist: Jim Hays, founder of said company, is now Vice Chairman at Howden.

You can't write this stuff.

Why Howden went full Ocean's Eleven

Earlier this year, Howden swung hard at acquiring Risk Strategies for a cool ~$10B.

They missed.

So they adjusted the strategy: If you can't buy the firm, just hire the firm.

Brown & Brown is NOT happy

The company held an emergency all-employee town hall faster than you can say "non-compete agreement."

Their message? We will enforce every non-solicit clause in those contracts. Do not poke the bear.

Translation: Lawyers are about to eat well.

And Howden's already got legal beef. They're currently facing lawsuits from Marsh, Aon, and Willis Towers Watson over similar moves.

Apparently when you play this aggressively, you collect litigation like Pokémon cards.

Why this matters beyond the drama

The insurance industry looks boring from the outside — spreadsheets, actuaries, khakis.

But beneath the surface:

• Employee benefits is booming

• Organic growth is stalling

• In this game, talent IS the product

In 2025, some insurance brokers have decided playing nice is for chumps. And if you've got the checkbook and the risk appetite, why buy the company when you can just Airbnb the entire staff?

Howden's recruiting team should probably update their LinkedIn bios to "Talent Acquisition Spec Ops."