Farmers Insurance has taken a former Oklahoma agent to federal court, accusing him of secretly running a competing operation from inside his own agency.
A lawsuit filed March 11 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma lays out what Farmers describes as a yearslong scheme by agent Bradley McKinney to funnel policyholders away from the carrier - even as he continued to operate under its name. The suit was brought by Farmers Insurance Exchange, Truck Insurance Exchange, Fire Insurance Exchange, Mid-Century Insurance Company, and Farmers New World Life and Insurance Company against McKinney, his wife Tory McKinney, and McKinney Insurance & Financial Services LLC.
McKinney served as a Farmers agent from August 2009 through May 2025, according to the filing. His Agent Appointment Agreement, in effect since March 2013, required him to place all qualifying business with Farmers or its affiliate, Kraft Lake Insurance Agency, before turning to any outside carrier.
Starting around 2022 or 2023, however, Farmers contends McKinney began doing just the opposite - placing insurance with competing carriers out of his Farmers office and, according to the court papers, employing staff to help run what amounted to a parallel operation.
The arrangement, as described in the filing, involved McKinney's wife and a former agency producer, Christopher Spicer. Both left the agency in late 2023 to join a Hometown Insurance operation in Tulsa. From there, Farmers alleges, McKinney directed policyholders and qualifying business their way.
The filing also highlights what Farmers characterizes as a deliberate effort to extract confidential data ahead of McKinney's exit. On or about December 9, 2024, McKinney accessed a secured Farmers platform to generate a report sorting agency contacts by age and date range, the filing states. Then, on or about February 18, 2025, he downloaded the agency's entire book of business in spreadsheet format.
Two days later, he submitted his resignation letter. Farmers terminated the agreement on May 15, 2025.
Central to the dispute is the contract language governing the relationship. Paragraph B of the Agent Appointment Agreement required McKinney to submit every insurance application to Farmers first. Only business that neither Farmers nor Kraft Lake would accept could go elsewhere. Paragraph K classified all customer information - including policyholder details and policy expiration dates - as the carrier's trade secret property, to be returned immediately upon termination.
Farmers is now pursuing five counts: trade secret misappropriation under both federal and Oklahoma law, a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim, breach of contract, tortious interference with contract and reasonable business expectations, and civil conspiracy. The carrier seeks compensatory and exemplary damages, disgorgement, and a court order requiring the return or destruction of all data it says was improperly taken.
No determination on the merits has been made.
For carriers built on exclusive agent models, the case is a sharp reminder that contractual protections are only as strong as the systems - and the willingness - to enforce them.
