New swiftcover.com operations centre in Teesside set to create 350 new jobs
Thursday, 08 April 2010
Online motor insurer swiftcover.com is building a new multi-million pound operations centre in Stockton, Teesside, bringing an expected 350 extra jobs to the area over the next three years.
Construction of the 25,000 sq ft building at the Portrack Interchange Business Park starts immediately and the centre will be operational in January 2011. swiftcover.com already has an operations centre in Stockton, so the new development will eventually increase the number of people employed in the area by the insurer to over 800.
The development reflects swiftcover.com’s success and dramatic growth in the five years since the company was established, with the business growing by nearly 40% last year alone. The new centre will be home to an expanded customer help team and a brand new IT development department to ensure the company maintains its cutting edge technology and innovation as the UK’s only fully online insurance provider.
In addition to the swiftcover.com brand, the new Stockton premises will also provide operations support to AXA Direct, the direct motor insurance service recently launched by AXA, swiftcover.com’s parent company. As well as motor insurance, swiftcover.com also provides motorcycle, travel and pet insurance, with new developments planned for the future.
The creation of the new operations centre shows swiftcover.com’s commitment to Teesside, where its presence has grown from a single small office when the company was first established in 2005.
Stockton-born Dave Fretter, swiftcover.com’s operations director, explains: “swiftcover.com has stayed loyal to Teesside, building on the success of our existing operation and fulfilling our commitment to staff to reward their efforts with our continued support.
“The local workforce is committed and ambitious, and we have supported this with investment in training and career development to maintain swiftcover.com’s high levels of customer service and staff retention.”
The development is being supported with a grant from One North East, the Regional Development Agency for Teesside.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
For press enquiries please contact:
Paul Beadle or Joshua Van Raalte
Brazil (PR agency for swiftcover.com)
01865 556 000
swiftcover@agencybrazil.com
About swiftcover:
Based in Cobham, Surrey and employing over 800 people, www.swiftcover.com started trading in June 2005 and was born out of a desire to revolutionise the general insurance market.
swiftcover.com offers car, travel and pet insurance online, and is Britain's only insurance company without call centres, which means that the cost savings can be passed directly onto the customer and premiums are kept low. In 2008 swiftcover.com featured as the cheapest insurance quote on the comparison website moneysupermarket.com more often than any other insurer.
This powerful operating model combined with successful marketing and competitive pricing has proven to be a tremendous success. In 2008 swiftcover.com achieved over half a million live policies and in May 2009 sold their one millionth policy. They are considered to be the fastest-growing insurer in the UK.
In 2007, AXA UK acquired swiftcover.com. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of AXA Insurance UK PLC which forms part of AXA Group.
About AXA:
AXA UK is a part of the AXA Group. AXA is a world leader in financial protection. AXA’s operations are diverse with major operations in Western Europe, North America and the Asia/Pacific area. AXA employs 120,000 staff and tied agents and, as of June 30 2006, had €1,091 billion in assets under management. AXA reported total IFRS revenues of €72 billion and IFRS underlying earnings of €3,258 million for the full year 2005. Our previous company performance is not a guide to how we may perform in the future.
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