AROUND 150 Scottish jobs are among 2000 under threat at Direct Line after the insurance giant revealed plans to step up its cost-cutting plans.
The cuts are believed to primarily affect head office, administrative and support departments.
The Scots roles under threat are based at sites in Glasgow city centre and Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire.
It is the latest round of redundancies at the UK's biggest motor insurer, which aims to make £100 million in savings next year.
The move comes as Direct Line, whose brands include Churchill, Privilege and Green Flag, recently revealed profits of £94.3m for the first three months of 2013 – up 47% on a year earlier thanks to cost savings and unusually low weather-related claims.
The group, partly owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, said it hoped to redeploy staff where possible and find opportunities for affected workers with other potential employers.
One in seven of the insurer's 14,000-strong workforce now face redundancy after Direct Line announced plans to more than double its original cost savings target to more than £200m gross annual savings by 2014, or £130m a year on a net basis.
Unite said the planned job losses were a savage bolt from the blue and slammed Direct Line for refusing to recognise the trade union.
Dominic Hook, Unite national officer for finance, added: "Unite will continue to strongly oppose anti-union bias where it exists in the finance sector and will give all the support we can to members at Direct Line on an individual basis.
"The Government's claim that the economy is out of intensive care will have a hollow ring for those at Direct Line who face the dole queue."
Direct Line has already axed 1200 jobs since last August under the cost-cutting drive.
It has 16 sites across the UK, including offices in central London, Croydon, Bromley, Leeds, Glasgow and Manchester.
The group is shutting its Teesside call centre over the next week, as previously announced, and it is understood another site is at risk of closure under the latest move to slash costs.
Nearly 500 staff work at the Liverpool site that is due to close, while around 240 are employed in Croydon and just under 400 at the London office earmarked to shut.
It hopes to transfer some of the Liverpool staff to Manchester, while a number of workers at Croydon and in London will transfer to its Bromley headquarters.
Paul Geddes, chief executive of Direct Line Group, insisted the firm had "not made these proposed changes lightly".
He said: "As we have done in the past, we will deal fairly and carefully with those impacted, and do all we can to support them through these changes."
The group saw gross premiums fall 4.5% during the quarter to about £1 billion as it refused to get drawn into a price war in the competitive car insurance market.
Several insurers, including Aviva, AXA and Standard Life, have cut their workforce in recent months in an effort to reduce costs and prepare for new regulations that include higher capital requirements.
Oriel Securities analyst Marcus Barnard said: "It wouldn't surprise me if there'd be more (cuts) from Direct Line, but they'll probably do at most one of these a year."
Taxpayer-backed RBS floated Direct Line to appease European Union rules on state aid. It still owns 48.5% of the insurer but must sell its entire stake by the end of next year. Direct Line said it continued to expect the migrating of its IT infrastructure away from RBS Group to an independent platform to cost about £100m.
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