Aviva Canada to cut less than 300 staff

Aviva Canada is cutting slightly less than 10% of its staff as part of Aviva plc’s parent corporate strategy to shed £200 million of costs from its businesses by the end of 2012.
In a press release announcing its 2010 Q3 results, Aviva plc “confirmed that, as our transformation programme continues to deliver benefits, the group will deliver £200 million of cost savings and a further £200 million of efficiency savings by the end of 2012.”
Aviva Canada confirmed in a statement that “we are making expense reductions that will help ensure we can provide our broker partners and customers with the very best and most competitively priced products and services.”
Aviva Canada said the vast majority of reductions would take place in non-customer-facing roles to ensure minimal impact on our brokers and customers.
“After elimination of vacancies and contractors, the impact is less than 300 reductions in our employee base,” the company said in a statement. “Post these actions, Aviva will continue to have more than 3,000 full-time employees in Canada.”
The reductions at Aviva Canada are part of Aviva plc’s overall cost savings and efficiencies objective of more than £60 million for the [North America] region. This will form part of the parent company’s targets for cost savings and efficiency gains by the end of 2012.
“These will be realised from the benefits of a regional cost sharing model in North America and targeted cost reductions and efficiencies in non-customer facing areas,” Aviva plc said in a press release.
Aviva Canada made the announcement while reporting its 2010 Q3 results, in which the Canadian operation reported a combined ratio of 98% for the first nine months.
The company announced important long-term investments, including $100 million over the next three to five years, to upgrade its IT core business solutions, improving connectivity and ease of doing business with Aviva.
Aviva Canada has also recently launched a search in the Greater Toronto Area for a “state-of-the-art facility” for its head office – a new, permanent home.