A Gallagher-owned brokerage is accusing rival The Liberty Company of orchestrating a sweeping raid of its employees, clients, and confidential data across California.
AssuredPartners of California Insurance Services filed a lawsuit on March 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, naming five former employees - Kevin Reed, Ramon Fuentes, Alexandra Ghica-Ochoa, Atif Awan, and Iris Dela Torre - along with The Liberty Company Insurance Brokers as defendants. The case, which is in its early stages and has not yet been decided, paints a picture of what AssuredPartners describes as a systematic effort by Liberty to poach its workforce and siphon off client business through improper means.
At the center of the dispute are allegations that the five individuals took confidential client information with them on their way out and began steering accounts to Liberty before they had even resigned — a move that, if proven, would amount to a breach of their duty of loyalty under California law.
According to court filings, Liberty brought on no fewer than 47 AssuredPartners employees in just nine months. The departures spanned multiple offices, including Ventura, Bakersfield, Santa Maria, and Newport Beach.
The individual allegations are pointed. Fuentes, a producer who spent 34 years at AssuredPartners and its predecessor, allegedly emailed a broker-of-record change letter to a client on January 31, 2026 — two days before he formally left the company. The letter asked the client to move its account to Liberty. When the client responded, it was to Fuentes' AssuredPartners email address, asking about the letter.
Awan, another producer, allegedly contacted a client on his very first day at Liberty with pre-filled BOR letters containing detailed policy information. The filing alleges this data was prepared using AssuredPartners' records rather than anything the client had provided. One client, appearing confused, responded by copying Awan at his old AssuredPartners email, noting that "Atif from Assured partners sent me these documents for your signature."
Reed, a sales executive, allegedly forwarded a spreadsheet summarizing new and lost business across producers — including client names, carriers, coverage lines, effective dates, and revenue — to his personal email in late December 2025. Dela Torre, an account executive, allegedly sent prospective client documents including policies, binders, and property-level financial data to her personal email before sharing them with Fuentes. Ghica-Ochoa, a director of commercial lines, allegedly used client account information sourced from AssuredPartners to prepare renewal materials at Liberty and deleted her Google Chrome history from her company computer shortly before leaving.
The filing notes that BOR notifications from carriers began arriving almost immediately after the departures - a timeline AssuredPartners calls "highly incriminating," arguing that legitimately transitioning client accounts involves several steps that cannot realistically unfold within hours.
AssuredPartners is pursuing claims under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act, breach of the duty of loyalty, aiding and abetting, and civil conspiracy. The company is seeking injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages, and disgorgement.
The lawsuit also references at least nine other cases filed since 2020 in which Liberty has faced similar accusations from competitors across the industry.
No determination has been made on the merits. The case remains pending.
Case: AssuredPartners of California Insurance Services, LLC v. Reed et al., Case No. 8:26-cv-00601 (C.D. Cal.).
