Allianz Insurance has announced that it will re-structure its retail division to meet the changing demands of its customers and increase operational efficiency.
The company has said that its retail division will be configured around specific customer groups with the aim of delivering targeted products and services and facilitating the more effective sharing of ideas, practice and know-how. To achieve this, a number of changes to the organizational structure will be implemented by June 2009.
There will be three sales and distribution teams, each with their own channel marketing function as direct, specialty, and corporate partner and broker.
This proposal involves changes to individual roles and responsibilities and includes around 170 potential redundancies. With the corresponding expansion of the operations in Brentford, Bristol and Guildford, Allianz is anticipating a reduction in headcount of around 60 people.
Jon Dye, general manager of retail division at Allianz, said: Retail insurance is central to Allianz’s aspirations in the UK market and the aim is to grow our retail business profitably to GBP1 billion gross written premium by 2013. We have a number of very successful businesses within our retail operation and are looking to share best practice from these units across the business.