Lawsuit Says Former Trident Exchange CEO Was ‘Self-Dealing’ on IT Work

A lawsuit filed by the parent company of Florida-based Trident Reciprocal Exchange charges that the insurer’s former CEO and co-founder secretly funneled more than $400,000 to her and her husband’s accounting firm for computer services that turned out to be plagued with problems.

“Despite her clear conflict of interest, Maria Moller never disclosed to the board that she was paying her own company (operated by herself and her husband) hundreds of thousands of dollars,” reads the complaint, filed in March in Seminole County Circuit Court. “The board never had an opportunity to evaluate and approve her self-dealing.”

An answer to the complaint has not yet been filed. Maria Moller, a Florida insurance industry veteran, said Wednesday that she could not comment on the lawsuit.

“After stepping away from Trident Reciprocal Exchange—an organization I’m proud to have built on strong financial and structural foundations—I’ve taken some time to be with family and reflect on the next chapter,” she said in an email.

The court summons and notice of the lawsuit was returned unserved in April, suggesting the couple could not be found. It wasn’t until early May that a service of process was accepted by Greg Moller, Maria’s husband, the court record shows.

The judge in the case has granted the Mollers’ attorney an extension of time, until June 2, to respond to the lawsuit.

The news about the litigation broke just as Trident this week named a new CEO, Ryan Hodges, formerly with Bankers Insurance, to replace Maria Moller.

The trouble seems to have begun in 2024, even before Trident, one of a dozen new property insurers to enter the once-troubled Florida market in recent months, was approved by Florida regulators for commercial and homeowners’ lines of business. The startup had named Maria Moller as CEO in April. Unbeknownst to the board, she hired her husband and the couple’s accounting firm, Florida Accounting Services (FAS), to provide information technology services, the complaint notes.

But by February of this year, the IT issues had become so frequent that Trident asked a consultant to investigate. Consultant Michael Potts said he was unable to access the FAS-managed computer system to get to the root of the problems.

Trident’s board chairman, Chris Johnson, then emailed Maria Moller for detailed information on the IT work.

She never responded, the lawsuit reads.

A month later, the board found that Trident had paid FAS almost $400,000 in the prior six months and more than $150,000 in February alone. To put that in perspective, Trident had paid well-known Federato, its primary tech provider, about $328,000 for software and services over a one-year period.

“Despite paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars for FAS services, FAS and Plaintiff lacked any written agreement defining the scope of FAS work or its billing practices,” the lawsuit explains. “As best as Plaintiff can tell, without the benefit of discovery, FAS would simply turn in hourly invoices for work, which were paid by Plaintiff’s accounting staff, who were under Maria Moller’s supervision.”

FAS also allegedly denied Trident access to much of its proprietary data, its emails and the Trident website, which FAS had administered.

“The persistent technological difficulties Plaintiff experienced while engaging with FAS doubtlessly resulted from FAS’ utter lack of technical qualification,” the suit contends. “As a direct and proximate result of Maria Moller’s self-dealing, Plaintiff paid vastly inflated invoices for inferior IT services from FAS.”

All of the alleged self-dealing came despite Moller being something of an expert in insurance compliance rules. Before joining Trident, she was compliance officer for Florida-based Frontline Insurance for a decade, and for Cabrillo Coastal General Insurance Agency, based in Gainesville. From 2007 to 2009, she was controller for Coral Insurance Co., which was liquidated in 2009.

And Moller prepared Trident’s own governance policy, which requires board approval for any financial transaction exceeding $50,000, the lawsuit states.

The Trident board terminated Maria Moller’s employment in March. But Moller continues to use the name, Trident Ventures Group, in her emails and on her Linkedin page. Moller and Trident both said the group is not affiliated with the insurance exchange. The Florida Department of State’s records show only that Moller is listed as manager of the Trident Ventures Group firm, an LLC.

The lawsuit asks the court to order the Mollers to return all of Trident’s data, to return their “ill-gotten” gains, and to pay other damages. The litigation is not to be taken lightly, industry veterans said. The parties have hired two of the best-known law firms in the country to represent them – Foley & Lardner for Trident Reciprocal, and Cozen O’Connor for the Mollers.

Maria Moller said that despite the dispute, she hopes to stay involved in the insurance world.

“I’ve been spending time exploring how innovation in areas like solar energy, fortified construction, and mitigation strategies can reshape the way we design insurance products,” she said in an email to Insurance Journal. “I’m especially interested in developing solutions—like thoughtfully crafted endorsements—that reward resilience and ultimately empower policyholders.

“Insurance is, and always will be, a space I’m passionate about,” she added. “When the time is right, I look forward to returning with something that I hope will move the industry forward in a meaningful way.”

Topics Lawsuits