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Dermot Joyce, executive director of Capita Insurance Services has resigned from the company, Insurance Times has learned.

It has also emerged that Bill Dye, executive director of Capita’s HR solutions and property consultancy, has resigned from the group. Dye was Joyce’s predecessor.

The departures have come as a surprise to many in the market.

One market source said Joyce’s departure raised questions about the credibility of Capita’s insurance services division.

Another source said that a FTSE 100 company losing two senior directors, despite being in separate divisions, was “problematic”.

But Sandy Dunn, non-executive chairman at Capita, insisted that the division remained strong. “There’s no reason why we should not go on to meet our objectives and continue to be the number one player in the insurance services sector.”

Capita has made a number of high-profile acquisitions recently, inc-luding CMGL, which it bought for £32m and motor trade body and acc-ident management specialist MVRA.

It remains unclear as to why Joyce resigned. Some market sources believe he may look to launch an MBO of part of Capita’s business, given his connections in the City.

However, some have suggested that Capita is too acquisition hungry at the moment to allow this to happen.

Richard Holland, managing director specialist services and Max Pell, managing director claims will take on Joyce’s role until the company finds a replacement.

Paddy Doyle, joint chief operating officer of the Capita Group, takes over Dye’s previous responsibilities.

Dye has been named chief executive of the ITE Group.