Howden-Driven Talent War Has Cost Brown & Brown $23M in Revenue, CEO Says

The Howden-driven talent war has cost Brown & Brown $23 million in revenue, according to J. Powell Brown, the broker’s president and chief executive officer.

“As of today, approximately 275 of our former teammates have joined this start-up, taking with them customers currently representing known annual revenues of $23 million,” Brown said during an analysts’ call on Jan. 27 to discuss the broker’s 2025 fourth quarter and full-year results.

“As we’ve done in the past, we will defend our rights in court and already have obtained an injunction,” he added,

Most of those former employees, he said, were not producers and were involved in the employee benefits area.

In December, Florida-based Brown & Brown filed a lawsuit against Howden, joining legal actions from other brokers – Alliant, Aon, Marsh and Willis Towers Watson – which are all seeking redress for Howden’s alleged poaching of their employees.

During the analysts’ call, Brown never referred to Howden by name, only as “the start-up.”

Brown emphasized that his company believes in competition. “That’s what makes great companies, great leaders and great individuals. We also believe in integrity, honesty, loyalty and trust,” Brown added.

“However, when a start-up U.S. broker conducts what appears to be a highly coordinated plan to lift entire teams from its competitors, taking information and customers in the process, it must be addressed.”

Brown confirmed that other U.S. brokers are also employing these aggressive hiring methods.

“…[T]he start-up firm [Howden] is one of many that are aggressively looking to hire people. The question is how they’re doing it,” he said.

When Brown & Brown hires people from other firms, “we ask them to abide by the contracts, whatever those contracts are that they have. And so there is a difference in opinion with that particular start-up here in the states.”

‘Strong Performance’

Despite the revenue hit from the loss of employees, Brown described the company’s fourth quarter results as capping off “another year of strong top and bottom-line financial performance. For the full year, we grew our revenue by 23% through a combination of M&A, organic revenue growth and strong growth in our contingent commissions.”

“We expanded our margins materially and grew our cash flow from operations by nearly 24%. This strong performance was in spite of softening cat property rates and economies returning to more normal growth levels.”

Record M&A Year

He said a business highlight of the year was the purchase of Accession Risk Management, the broker’s largest-ever acquisition, a deal that was first announced in June and completed in August). Brown & Brown had a record year for M&A, adding approximately $1.8 billion of annual revenue from 43 acquisitions with the largest being Accession.

For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2025, the company reported total revenues of $1.6 billion, increasing $423 million, or 35.7%, compared to the fourth quarter of the prior year, with organic revenue decreasing 2.8%.

The drop in organic revenue was described as “disappointing” in a market note from equities analyst Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW). Brown said the drop in organic revenue was driven substantially by flood claims processing revenue recognized in the fourth quarter of last year.

Q4 net income attributable to the company was $264 million, increasing $54 million, or 25.7%, compared to the fourth quarter of the prior year.

For the 12 months ended Dec. 31, Brown & Brown reported total revenue of $5.9 billion, increasing $1.1 billion, or 22.8%, compared to 2024, with organic revenue increasing by 2.8%.

Full-year net income attributable to the company was $1.1 billion, an increase of $61 million, or 6.1%, compared to 2024.