FCA fined Inspire Insurance's director £1.1M for spending insurers' money

Between 2011 and 2019, Leigh Mackey exercised sole control over Inspire Insurance Services, a brokerage focused on the construction sector. He admitted that money intended for insurers was instead diverted to sustain the company's operations and his own personal expenses — a practice that, by his own admission, left Inspire owing insurers more than £660,000. Inspire's liquidator put the gap higher still: over £2.2 million.

The concealment was systemic. For four consecutive years, regulatory reports falsely claimed the required client asset audits had been performed — reports Mackey has since acknowledged were untrue, misleading the Financial Conduct Authority over a prolonged period.

The FCA banned Mackey from working in financial services and fined him £1,102,879. Therese Chambers, the FCA's joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said the fine and ban demonstrate the seriousness with which the regulator views abuse of position for personal gain, a practice that risks undermining the integrity of the UK's financial system.

£1,102,879 fine and a ban from financial services; Inspire owed insurers over £660,000 by his own admission, £2.2M+ per the liquidator.

Sole control over client money with no second pair of eyes meant nothing stopped premiums being treated as company cash.

The diverted funds masked a business that could not survive on its own revenues — the insurer float was keeping it alive.

Falsifying the audit reports for four years converted an operational failure into deliberate deception of the regulator.

Client money is not working capital: a broker that spends premiums owed to insurers is one honest audit away from a liquidator's reckoning.

The FCA fined Mackey £1,102,879 and banned him from the financial services industry. The company entered liquidation, where the liquidator's estimate put the insurer shortfall at more than £2.2 million.