How far do your ambitions in the insurance arena go? For most, the opportunity to be CEO of a company would be the peak of their dreams – but one man appears to have his goals set even further, with political leadership in his sights.
After Nigel Farage stepped down from his role as UKIP’s mastermind yesterday, it is a former insurance boss who has emerged as the frontrunner to take the reins – in the form of Arron Banks.
Banks, who has been a multimillionaire donor to UKIP over the years, and has arguably bankrolled much of the party’s success, has announced that he is considering his own candidacy and looks set to battle it out with party spokesman Steven Woolfe and former deputy chairwoman Suzanne Evans as Farage’s potential replacement.
Banks has plenty of ties to the insurance world. Though he began his career in the banking sector he made most of his big money as an insurance entrepreneur – he was the founder of both GoSkippy and Southern Rock. GoSkippy is an insurance broker with a focus on car, home, van and bike insurance; while Southern Rock is based in Gibraltar and underwrites car insurance in the UK.
In addition, Banks has been involved in the diamond industry in South Africa and has also been mired in controversy at different stages of his career as he was listed as a shareholder in a company named in the Panama Papers leak and drew criticism during the “Leave” campaign for commissioning a poll on whether the murder of Jo Cox had altered people’s opinion on voting.
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