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Banking giant RBS to cut 160 insurance jobs
BANKING giant RBS Insurance has announced it could axe up to 160 jobs at its Peterborough office.
RBS Insurance has said it was shutting the personal insurance arm of its National Insurance and Guarantee Corporation (NIG) because a business review had found it was unlikely to be financially viable in the future.
Instead, NIG, which has a base at Worldwide House, in Thorpe Wood, Peterborough, will focus solely on the commercial insurance side of the business.
The news comes despite recent announcements of new jobs in the city with the Stobart Group planning to bring 370 jobs with the creation of a distribution centre in Parnwell Way while online retail giant Amazon said it would be making 1,400 new packaging jobs available at its base in Kingston Park.
NIG is part of RBS Insurance which employs 500 people in Peterborough. Around 900 people work in NIG across the UK.
The news was broken to staff yesterday but RBS bosses said a consultation was now underway. They have vowed to try to keep any compulsory redundancies that may have to be made down to a minimum.
Any job losses would take place over the next 18 months.
Ben Thornton, head of NIG Personal Lines, said: “Like any commercial organisation, we constantly review each of our product lines against a rigorous set of criteria for future growth and profitability.
“Our commercial business is performing and growing well and we have invested heavily in product development, service and underwriting in the last 12 months.
“However, the assessment of our personal lines business suggests it is unlikely to sustain a sufficient level of profitable growth to meet our business requirements going forward.
“As NIG is well-respected by brokers in the commercial market, we are keen to now concentrate all of our efforts on this side of the business.
“This proposal may regrettably affect a number of roles within the personal lines teams. As such, we have begun a process of collective consultation for those individuals impacted by this announcement.”
A RBS spokesman said the job losses would be affect staff who deal with sales and service calls.
Peterborough MP Stewart Jackson said the news was a major blow to the city’s economy.
He added: “I hope that the redundancies will be kept to a minimum. This comes on the back of three years of very difficult trading circumstances and I sympathise with all the people who have lost their jobs.”
NIG was part of the Churchill group of companies acquired by RBS in 2003.
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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Comments
There are 8 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
carlb
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 01:10 PMHow strange on Insurer is pulling out of Peterborough (RBS) as another insurer RSA, the old Royal & Sun Alliance and More Than seem to be recruiting loads of people both full and part time at the minute. Good to see at least someone has faith in us Peterborough lot!!!
AliV
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 12:07 PM@ Gonzales They have to know a lot about insurance law - its not just data entry.
Holly Golightly
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 11:49 AMBadwolf: thanks for that correction. Yes is it 'Compare-the-Meerkat-dot-com', and not 'Meerkat-dot-com'.
gonzales
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 11:31 AM? Semi skilled professional jobs lost. Sitting at a screen answering telephone calls can hardly be called semi skilled.
badwolf
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 05:37 PMi don't know if Holly is actually aware compare the market?meerkat does not sell anyone insurance, compare the market is a price comparison sight which will show the cheapest firm to buy insurance and compare the meerkat, is a sight about meerkats and has nothing to do with insurance,so how does this affect R.B.S exactly, possible idea is that when it was about to go under and had to be bailed out by the taxpayer, yet they still managed to give out bonuses for good work
Holly Golightly
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 03:17 PMThis is very sad for the city, but I do wonder if the affected staff were insured against it. With cheap insurance from Meerkat-dot-com it is to be expect in times like this, the public will buy insurance from the cutest animal. Perhap RBS should quickly rebrand their insurance arm. Churchill, the old dog, is no long in favor. Perhaps a cute ChinChilla is the purfect solution....to fight the Meerkats. Just a thought... it could be called 'Chilly the ChinChilla.'.....
pedroposh
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 01:49 PMI hear what you are saying, it is very sad but as a city there is a natural shortage of skills within it.
Veritas of Peterborough
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 12:56 PMYet more semi skilled professional jobs lost - the Financial Services Industry has really abandoned Peterborough - First Lloyds TSB 240 jobs, Then Barclays Investment Managers 450 jobs and now RBS with 160 jobs. But fear not there will be plenty of jobs in wharehouses loading trucks.
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