Eighteen insurance brokers at Willis Towers Watson's construction practice resigned within a 44-minute window on August 19, walking out the door and into jobs at rival brokerage Lockton Companies. Willis Towers Watson responded by filing a 67-page verified complaint in Suffolk County Superior Court, accusing Lockton of orchestrating what the lawsuit calls a coordinated raid on its employees and client relationships.
The mass departure began at 8:02 a.m. and was finished by 8:46 a.m., according to ENR, which identified Michael Scott, WTW's New England construction practice leader, and Thomas Grandmaison, WTW's chief client officer for construction, as the executives who led the walkout. The 18 employees were mostly based in Massachusetts, though the group also included workers from Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Alabama, according to Boston.com. The two firms' Boston offices sit close to one another in the heart of downtown — WTW at 125 High St., Lockton at 225 Franklin St. — a detail that has not gone unnoticed as the dispute plays out.
A Contract Clause and a Warning From March
WTW filed its lawsuit on August 24 in Suffolk County Superior Court, naming Lockton Companies, LLC and all 18 former brokers as defendants, per Agency Checklists. The complaint alleges that none of the 18 departing brokers gave the 15 days' written notice their employment agreements required before quitting. WTW's filing describes the alleged conduct as “so brazen, severe, and outrageous,” according to Boston.com's reporting. Massachusetts law requires noncompetition agreements to include a garden-leave clause or other mutually agreed-upon consideration between the employer and employee.
The complaint also points to a warning sign from months earlier. WTW alleges that during a March 2026 leadership meeting, Scott threatened to leave the company with his team and clients if he wasn't given a senior position in an upcoming corporate reorganization, the same Agency Checklists report states. The departing employees represented more than $5 million in annual revenue for WTW, according to the complaint cited by Boston.com, and had provided insurance and risk-management services to construction companies nationwide.
Client Accounts Started Moving Within Days
The commercial fallout was immediate. Within days of the departures, WTW received notice that 13 client relationships were moving: five through broker-of-record letters naming Lockton as the new broker and eight through carrier notifications involving other new brokers, according to ENR. WTW has said it believes Lockton may be targeting additional clients beyond those 13 relationships, per its own statements reported by Boston.com.
WTW asked the court for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop further solicitation and to block Lockton from servicing certain disputed accounts. A hearing on the preliminary injunction request had been scheduled for August 26 in Suffolk Superior Court, but according to Boston.com, that hearing did not take place. Court docket activity suggests the parties may instead be working toward a resolution outside of court. WTW's lawyers have offered no further comment, and Lockton did not immediately return a request for comment, Boston.com reported.
WTW Cites Its Own Precedent — and Lockton's
In its filing, WTW asked the court to compel Lockton to disgorge client relationships and profits, and it made a pointed argument in support: Lockton itself previously sought and won that exact remedy when it was the target of a corporate raid in earlier litigation, according to Insurance Journal. The two firms also have direct history with each other. In April 2021, a Florida court issued a two-year injunction against Lockton and 25 former WTW employees in a separate staff-poaching lawsuit WTW brought at the time, per AM Best News.
Part of a Broader Industry Pattern
The case fits into a wider pattern across commercial insurance brokerage, where mass team defections and the corporate-raid litigation that follows have escalated across the sector, with major global brokerages regularly suing competitors over entire practice walkouts, according to Business Insurance. Lockton is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, per the same Business Insurance report.
The Boston-Cambridge-Nashua, MA-NH area has an insurance-sales workforce.
WTW, for its part, is a UK-headquartered global insurance brokerage and risk-management firm that has weathered its own major corporate upheaval in recent years. The company called off a proposed $30 billion megamerger with rival broker Aon in July 2021 after the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit to block it, a deal Hoodline previously covered in the context of Aon's pending buyout of USI. As of September 8, the case between WTW and Lockton remained open, with no indication yet of how — or whether — a courtroom fight over 18 brokers and their client books will ultimately be resolved.
