RSA may have only rebranded quite recently, in April 2008 to be precise, but this has not bought them immunity from the current economic downturn happening around the the globe, and not only in the UK, by storm.
Insurer, RSA is to cut up to 1,200 jobs in it’s UK offices during the next 15 months in an effort to shave £70m a year off it’s operational costs.
14% of their 8,700-strong workforce will find themselves out of a job as part of a strategy to save the £70m a year. This means that by the middle of 2010, RSA will have reduced its workforce headcount during the past 7 years by some 43%.
The disaappointing announcement comes in spite of RSA’s strong performance in 2008 with net written premiums up by some £6.5bn against 2007 (+11%).
Adrian Brown, UK chief executive of RSA, said:
“We have already reduced our management population by about 15%. One of the reasons why RSA has continued to produce strong results is that we’ve taken action early on rate and expenses and this is a continuation of that action.”
Personal lines premiums which includes products such as Home and Car Insurance were up 2% to £1.1bn. Premiums in their commercial lines portfolio were in line with last year at £1.6bn.