In an effort to cut costs and improve efficiency, Aviva today announced that it would reduce its staff in the UK by 4,000 from the existing 36,000 and offshore 1,000 of them to India by 2008.The company will also offshore 500 roles to third party IT suppliers, the insurance major said in a statement, in line with previous announcements that 7,800 roles would be offshored by the end-2007.Aviva, which owns Norwich Union, hopes to reduce duplication and improve efficiency to deliver annual cost savings of 250 million pounds by 2008.The company said the savings and costs would be evenly spread between the life and general Insurance businesses and in the life business, "our expectation is that it will principally benefit shareholders. These initiatives will further strengthen the group's ability to meet its current financial objectives and deliver growth for shareholders." "The savings are in addition to the planned RAC integration savings of 130 million pounds per annum by 2008," the statement added.
