Allianz to reorganize claims division

Allianz has announced plans to consolidate its claims' divisions in fewer offices.

The move will see commercial property claims handling at one centre in Birmingham; motor personal injury claims handling at three centres in Bristol, Manchester and Woking; casualty claims handling at two centres in Milton Keynes and Woking.

The insurer's motor service claims are unaffected and will continue to be handled out of Birmingham, Bristol, Milton Keynes and Woking.

Household claims will continue to be handled out of the Bristol office.

The handling of claims at Glasgow and Leeds will be phased out prior to their closure during the fourth quarter of 2007. This will see a revised footprint of five claims handling centres more closely aligned by specialism.

Allianz said staff directly affected will be offered the opportunity to find an alternative role within the organisation and outplacement support. The insurer added it "hopes to keep staff loss to an absolute minimum as overall there is no change to its staff requirement across the organisation".

Jon Dye, claims director, added: "We have seen clearly the service and expertise benefits to be driven out by the segmentation of claims.

"During the first half of 2007, we reviewed further the merit in developing a more refined approach to specialisation and its impact on existing structures within our claims handing centres. We believe that we now have a structure which will help meet our objective, which is to make the Allianz Insurance claims division the recognised market leader in terms of service delivery and technical excellence.

"We are committed to maintaining our high service standards throughout and making the transition for our customers as seamless as possible. We have already begun the process of explaining to brokers how the new structure will work operationally and the feedback has been positive."