Direct Line to axe 800 jobs as customers increasingly move online
Insurance firm Direct Line has confirmed it is to cut 800 jobs as a response to the growing prevalence of customers interacting with the firm online.
The cuts by the company, which also owns the Churchill and Green Flag brands, will affect almost 7 per cent of its 11,000 workforce.
Sky News reported earlier today that the company was looking to economise its operations and will inform staff today about where the job losses will take place.
According to the broadcaster, Direct Line was looking to close one of its sites in two years’ time, while a second will be dramatically downsized.
It also said that around a thousand employees based at its Bromley headquarters are expected to have their jobs changed to integrate ‘agile working.’
The Green Flag brand owner announced last November that it was looking to save £60million in costs in 2019 and 2020 in order to become more efficient.
Today’s announcement comes exactly a year after Penny James was named the new chief executive of the firm’s parent company, the Direct Line Insurance Group.
The former chief financial officer of Direct Line was the first female head of a financial services business on the FTSE 100. She was the seventh female chief executive of a firm on the blue-chip index. It has since fallen to the FTSE 250 Index.
A Direct Line Group spokeswoman said: ‘Like many companies we are having to prepare for changes in the way we operate, reflecting changing customer behaviour where people are increasingly opting to interact with us digitally.
‘We are therefore proposing a number of changes across the business which sadly mean the loss of jobs for some of our people.
‘These decisions are always really difficult; we take the well-being of our people very seriously and have given people as much time as possible to prepare.’
Direct Line was set up in 1984 by Peter Wood and Churchill Insurance founder Martin Long to sell motor insurance.
It has been at the forefront of innovation in the insurance industry since its beginning. It was the first insurer to have a 24-hour helpline, and to be open on the evenings and weekends.
Royal Bank of Scotland was an initial backer and maintained its involvement with Direct Line until the bank was bailed out by the government at the apex of the financial crisis.