82 jobs axed as insurance giant pulls out of Leicester
A rise in online business has meant that Aviva is set to close its Leicester office with the loss of 82 jobs.
The jobs are based at Princess Road West – and the redundancies are expected to be completed by 31 December this year.
The work from Leicester will be transferred to a new ‘digital hub’ in Perth, Scotland or one of Avia’s local underwriting teams, however, a small underwriting team will remain in Leicester.
A handful of jobs will also go in London, bringing the total job losses to 85.
Gareth Hemming, director of SME commercial at Aviva, said: “Over half of our commercial policies are now transacted online and this number is only going to rise in the future. Creating a new commercial digital hub in Perth demonstrates how Aviva is changing to meet the increasing demand for digital solutions. Combining this centre with a traditional trading model gives our brokers and their customers a combination of leading digital and local solutions, backed up by the quick service they value and access to underwriters.
“As we look to create a commercial digital hub to centralise this activity we will also move to provide a local service to more brokers. Unfortunately these changes will have an impact on some of our people. We appreciate this is a difficult message for our staff and will be working closely with those affected to provide as much support as possible.”
Unite national officer for finance Dominic Hook said: “Any loss of jobs is to be strongly deplored, but we are working closely with the company to mitigate the number of jobs under threat.
“The company is planning to reduce the staff from the current figure of about 116 roles in Leicester, with those staff retained moving to a more mobile operation, either based in brokers’ offices or working from home with occasional site/broker visits.
“We have just entered the 45-day consultation period and Unite will be doing all it can to provide maximum support to our members at Aviva at this time of worry and uncertainty for them.”
The jobs under threat are in General Insurance (GI) Commercial dealing with small and medium commercial enterprise policies and broker trading.
