Aviva to cut 1,800 jobs as it looks to save £300m over the next three years

Aviva has announced plans to cut around 1,800 jobs as it looks to reduce expenses by £300m a year over the next three years.

In an investor update on Thursday, the insurer said the job cuts would be made across the group out of a total workforce of around 30,000. The company said it will try to keep redundancies to a minimum, for example through natural turnover.

Chief executive officer Maurice Tulloch said this was the "first step" in making the group "simpler, more competitive and more commercial".

"I am also determined to crack Aviva's complexity, an issue which has held back our performance for too long," he said. "Today's changes will begin to reduce complexity, cost, and duplication, enabling Aviva to be better at serving our customers and delivering stronger results for our shareholders.

"The sustainability and security of our dividend is paramount. We are focused on improving our performance to grow capital generation and cash-flow."

The insurer confirmed plans to manage its life and general insurance businesses in the UK separately, with the digital direct business integrated into UK general insurance. It has appointed Angela Darlington as interim CEO of UK Life and Colm Holmes as CEO of General Insurance.

Aviva also reiterated its commitment to a progressive dividend policy and debt reduction of at least £1.5bn.

It said trading in the year to date has been broadly consistent with 2018, with a weaker performance in savings and asset management partly offset by growth in Europe and Asia and progress on its turnaround in Canada.

Union Unite's Aviva officer, Andy Case, said: "The scale of this role reduction will be met with disbelief across the company.

"Unite have arranged urgent discussions with Aviva management in order to ascertain the rationale for cutting an already extremely stretched workforce. Unite has made it clear to management that the union will strongly challenge any attempt to make compulsory redundancies. Instead, any staff reductions must be found through volunteers, natural attrition, reducing reliance on contractors and redeployment."