2,300 insurance jobs move to India

Britain's biggest insurance company is cutting more than 2,300 call-centre and office jobs by shifting them to India to save costs.

Aviva, best known for its Norwich Union brand, said it would aim to lose most of the British jobs voluntarily but could not rule out up to 500 compulsory redundancies.

The move, condemned as "pure greed" by unions, will hit Aviva offices throughout the country, including up to 100 posts in London. The worst affected area is likely to be Norwich.

Aviva made £850 million pretaxin the first half of the year and says it has set aside £1.5 million for advice and retraining for affected staff.

It is the latest in a wave of Indian "outsourcing" moves by British financial firms including Lloyds TSB, Prudential and Abbey National. The biggest to date was HSBC's plan to move 4,000 jobs to India, China and Malaysia. Rail enquiry lines are also expected to move to India soon.

Companies can save up to 60 per cent when they move a post to a low-wage country such as India. Up to 200,000 British jobs are expected to be "exported" to Asia over the next decade, according to some estimates.

About 350 of the Indian Aviva posts will be for callcentre and claims-processing staff based in Delhi and Bangalore dealing mainly with UK motor and household insurance claims. The other 2,000 will be "back-office" IT and administration jobs.

The moves, which come into effect next year, will treble Aviva's presence in India from 1,200 to 3,700 staff. An Aviva spokeswoman said Indian staff met the same standards as UK workers at a cost saving of 30 to 40 per cent. Chief executive Richard Harvey said the move would help Aviva stay competitive and "secure a long-term future for our business and the majority of our people".

Dave Fleming, national secretary of the Amicus union, said: "This ignores Aviva's corporate responsibility to its UK employees and customers. It will have a serious effect on many local communities for the sake of a saving that won't be passed on to customers."