HUNDREDS more jobs looked set to disappear from Scotland’s insurance industry yesterday as another major employer announced plans to move posts to India.

Royal & SunAlliance (RSA), Britain’s second largest insurer, announced it plans to transfer more than 1,100 jobs to India in an effort to cut costs.

The firm, which employs 440 people in its commercial operation in Glasgow, could not rule out any job losses in Scotland, but said it hoped any reduction in UK-based positions would be achieved through natural turnover and redeployment.

A spokesman for the firm said it expected to save about £10 million a year by switching its call-centre and customer service work to Bangalore. At the moment it employs 100 workers in India. The figure will rise to 1,200 by 2006.

Royal & Sun’s UK chief executive, Duncan Boyle, said: “We work in a very competitive environment and processing some of our work in India will not only help us control costs but will also give us greater operational flexibility.”

The cuts will be made in call centres, administration and processing offices across Britain. The company did not rule out further job transfers to India but the spokesman said nothing was planned.

RSA has been shedding thousands of jobs as part of a major restructuring intended to refocus on general insurance.

The firm has also sold its life business and other assets to strengthen its finances.

Aviva, Britain’s biggest insurer, said last month it would create about 950 offshore jobs in India and Sri Lanka next year to service its UK operations. The company said it planned to have 7,000 staff working in overseas call centres by 2007.

Over the past two years, nearly 30 big firms have outsourced about 50,000 jobs, mainly call centre and IT posts, to India. HSBC bank has moved 4,000 call centre jobs there, while Lloyds TSB has shifted 1,500. Phone company BT has said it plans to create 7,000 jobs in India.

Yesterday, the finance trade union Amicus said the mass transfer of jobs to Asia could harm parts of Britain such as northern England, where call centres had replaced the declining manufacturing industry.

An Amicus spokesman said: “The concern is that when these jobs go, what is coming in to replace them?”

The union called on the UK government to train call-centre staff in extra skills to make it easier for them to find jobs when cuts are made.

Over the past year, the banks HSBC and Lloyds, and the National Rail Inquiry Service have all “outsourced” call centres to India.

HSBC recently caused public outrage and infuriated trade unions by claiming that call-centre employees in India are far more efficient than those in the UK.

In call centres in the UK there are a recorded 50 errors per million transactions, as opposed to eight per million in call centres in India. Companies believe that call-centre employees in the sub-continent are much cheaper, more efficient and more willing to work hard, despite boredom issues and long hours.