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State high court revives claims against former insurance agency staff - Business Insurance Skip to content Register for free Search Search Log In Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers Risk Management Cyber Risks Pricing Trends Mergers & Acquisitions Technology Sponsored Content WSIA RISKWORLD Workers Comp & Safety Workers Comp Cost Control Pain Management Workplace Safety International EMEA Asia-Pacific Latin America People Events BI Intelligence Top 100 Agents & Brokers Best Places to Work 2025 Lists Directories Insurance Pricing BI Stock Index Magazine Current Issue Past Issues Subscribe Women to Watch ALL INsurance Resources Risk Perspectives Sponsored Content Webinars White Papers State high court revives claims against former insurance agency staff by Richard Sine Agents and Brokers May 22, 2026 Relation Insurance scored a partial victory Friday when a state high court revived claims related to trade secrets and computer fraud against a group of former employees who formed a rival firm. The North Carolina Supreme Court in Relation Insurance Inc. v. Pilot Risk Management Consulting LLC reversed a lower court’s dismissal of most claims brought by Relation Insurance Services of North Carolina in Greensboro, North Carolina, against a competing agency and seven former employees who left Relation in late 2021 and early 2022. In 2019, Relation shifted its commission rate model for producers but failed to inform all of its producers, leading to dissent within the ranks, according to the suit. Relation later filed a suit against a producer and colleagues who left to form Pilot Risk, also based in Greensboro. More employees defected to Relation after the broker froze pay during the COVID-19 pandemic. Relation claims that producers and account managers who left for Pilot Risk took client lists, policy renewal data, and other proprietary information. A forensic analyst testified he had never seen, in more than 35 years, “such extensive and coordinated deletions of evidence across so many electronic devices” as he found while examining the defendants’ phones and computers. The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s finding that two client spreadsheets — a 98-client client list and a policy renewal list emailed by one employee to her personal account the day before she accepted a position at Pilot — did not qualify as trade secrets. The justices held that both lists raised genuine factual disputes that a jury must resolve. “Whether certain information qualifies as a trade secret has repeatedly been characterized as a case-specific, factual determination,” wrote Justice Tamara P. Barringer. The court also reversed summary judgment on claims brought under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, finding that one former employee accessed a vendor portal nearly two months after receiving a cease-and-desist letter. The justices affirmed dismissal of Relation’s unjust enrichment claim, holding that a wrongful taking does not amount to a “conferred” benefit as the law requires. The court remanded the nonsolicitation clause claims for further proceedings, finding an unresolved factual dispute over the size and scope of Relation’s corporate affiliates, a factor in determining whether the restrictions were reasonable and enforceable under North Carolina law. 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